


Caretaking is an Art (But I'm No Artist)

by gallantrejoinder



Series: Acts of Service [1]
Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: Caretaking, Demisexuality, Domestic, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pararibulitis (Dirk Gently), Pining, Sharing a Bed, Tea, do not copy to another site
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-11
Updated: 2019-06-14
Packaged: 2020-02-29 23:19:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 25,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18788299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gallantrejoinder/pseuds/gallantrejoinder
Summary: “Dirk, did you … have a nightmare?”“I mean, for a given definition of nightmare, sure, I suppose, but then, what are dreams? What are visions? What is reality? What is –”“It’s okay,” Todd interrupts, knowing how to stop a Dirk spiral in its tracks. “I had a bad dream too.”***Todd Brotzman is not a caring kind of person. He's just some asshole with a guilt complex a mile long.But he really loves taking care of Dirk Gently.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bookwhims](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookwhims/gifts).



Todd wakes up and for a terrible, heart-stopping moment, he thinks it’s to a pararibulitis attack.

But no. His hand isn’t frozen in a block of ice or crushed into a pile of meat – it’s just fallen asleep.

There is a noise, though – a quiet creaking of floorboards – that makes Todd briefly consider the fact that he might still be hallucinating. Typically pararibulitis doesn’t come with auditory hallucinations, so Todd scrunches up his eyes and tries to blink himself into wakefulness. Must be something. It’s always something, with Dirk living in the same apartment.

(To be fair, sometimes the something is Farah, who also lives with them. Midnight kickboxing without any prior notice was a mistake that had only happened once.)

The blurriness in Todd’s eyes finally clears, and he peers into the darkness. But there’s nothing in his room but old band posters and the unwieldy shadows of his instruments, so the noise must be coming from outside. Todd stretches with a quiet groan and sits up. God, he hopes it isn’t another horse. Getting it out of their apartment last time, _that_ had been a nightmare.

He stumbles over to the door and pulls it open, expecting to find a darkened hallway or possibly a very angry thoroughbred behind it. Instead, he finds Dirk, hand raised to knock, standing there in his pastry-themed pyjamas and looking for all the world like he’s been crying.

“Dirk?”

Dirk sniffles a little pathetically, but straightens up as if this is a totally normal and not at all unexpected interaction. “Oh, hi Todd. What are you doing up?”

“… I heard a noise,” Todd says, flatly.

Dirk’s eyes widen. “Oh no – it’s not the horse again, is it?”

Todd stares. “No, Dirk, it’s not the horse.”

“Right, yes. Of course.”

Todd lets his eyes roam over Dirk’s appearance. He’s clearly distressed, judging by the huge dark circles under his eyes and the redness in them, but one thing that Dirk’s _not_ … is explaining things. Dirk has two modes: explain everything, including even the vaguest non-sequiturs that fly through his head at a moment’s notice, or, when he’s really upset – when it’s something to do with Blackwing, or when someone gets hurt on a case – that’s when Dirk explains precisely nothing. And given that, to Todd’s knowledge, they aren’t actually on a case right now, (at least he hopes they’re not,) that narrows it down to Blackwing. An idea forms in his mind.

“Dirk, did you … have a nightmare?”

“I mean, for a given definition of nightmare, sure, I suppose, but then, what are dreams? What are visions? What is reality? What is –”

“It’s okay,” Todd interrupts, knowing how to stop a Dirk spiral in its tracks. “I had a bad dream too.”

Dirk looks at Todd with something terribly vulnerable in his face. It reminds Todd, unexpectedly, of how Amanda used to look when she was very young, and wanted nothing more than for Todd to spend time with her until she felt better. Todd, of course, being a total and utter asshole at the time, never did. But Todd’s not an asshole anymore. Or at least, that’s what Dirk keeps telling him.

He clears his throat, voice still rough from sleep. “Um, this might be – weird, or whatever, but do you – you don’t have to – do you wanna come and stay, uh, with me?”

Dirk looks like he’s struggling to speak. Finally he nods, looking somehow both very uncertain and very determined.

“Okay,” Todd says softly, “Okay.”

Dirk follows Todd into his bedroom and waits nervously while Todd closes the door and slides into bed. Thank god his sheets are relatively clean – he’d done a huge load of bedsheets and towels about a week ago, after Dirk had finally admitted that he’d been the one to set the washing machine on fire about a month before that.

(Admittedly, that probably should have been one for Todd to figure out on his own.)

Todd pats the other side of the bed awkwardly. Dirk, finally given permission, scrambles into bed, pulling the sheets up to his chin. It’s been a cold Fall, and even Todd’s shivering a little from having been out of bed.

Dirk remains uncharacteristically still on his side of the bed, and Todd’s careful not to enter his personal space any more than necessary. He tries not to panic about sharing a bed with his very male and very gay best friend, but fails. If Todd were straight, then it wouldn’t be weird, but Todd is bi, so sharing a bed with his best, male, and very, very gay friend, is probably at least a little weird. But maybe he’s overthinking it. Dirk’s usually a pretty touchy person with Todd and Farah anyway, always throwing an arm around Farah’s shoulder or pulling Todd in for a hug whenever something exciting happens. And of course the category of ‘exciting’ tends to include such gems as the local grocery store having a sale on sour gummy worms.

The point being, that Dirk is a cuddly kind of guy who really loves his best friends. Tonight, Todd just got lucky that his bedroom was closer than Farah’s.

“Good night, Todd.” Dirk’s voice startles Todd out of his thoughts.

“Good night, Dirk,” Todd whispers.

Minutes later, he’s asleep.

 

~

 

Todd wakes up the next day to the sight of Dirk staring at him from approximately five inches away. The look on his face can best be described as terrified. It takes a second for Todd to realise what he’s looking at, but when he does, he freezes.

“… Hi,” he says, hoarsely. Jesus, even _he_ can taste his morning breath. What had Dirk been doing up so close to _that_?

“I’m sorry,” Dirk says. Blearily, Todd notes that Dirk’s breath is no better than his. “I just showed up in the middle of the night and admittedly it’s not the first time either of us has had a midnight encounter with the unexpected, but this time it was actually completely my fault, which is really kind of unforgiveable of me considering how much you need your sleep, what with your attacks and all, but I just couldn’t sleep. And I was lying there and thinking about – things – and then – then it all got a bit much, and I thought, well, _Todd always makes you feel better, right Dirk_? So I went to go knock on your door, but I wasn’t going to at the last moment because of the aforementioned need for you to get a good night’s sleep to prevent attacks, but then you were there, and I just –”

“Dirk,” Todd interrupts, alarmed. He pulls one of his hands out from the tangle of sheets and presses it against Dirk’s arm. “Don’t spin out, okay?”

“Right, yes, okay, it’s just that I was worried you would be angry, or that – no, you wouldn’t be angry, you’re never angry, just sort of cranky sometimes which is actually a rather endearing quality of yours –”

“Breathe.”

Todd rubs his thumb along Dirk’s arm. Dirk takes a deep breath, eyes darting around the room with quick, worried movements. But he keeps breathing slow, deliberate breaths, until he looks more settled. Todd forces himself to wake up a little more in the meantime, and nearly kicks himself for not predicting this. Dirk, for all that he’d been the one to chase down Todd’s friendship, and all that he was capable of being rather demanding when it came to assisting on cases, could be surprisingly anxious about asking for _genuine_ support. He could order Todd to spend two hours looking for a twelve-inch neon green statue of an ancient Mesopotamian goddess in a local dump, but blanch at an offer to sit together in the afternoon and talk about Mona, or Bart, or – well, Blackwing in general, basically.

“It’s fine,” Todd says, when Dirk looks like he’s capable of paying attention to Todd’s voice again. “Seriously. I used to stay with Amanda some nights, before I moved out. I don’t mind.”

“Yes, but –”

“No buts,” Todd insists. “Did it help?”

“Well – yes.” Admitting as much makes Dirk look very vulnerable in the morning light.

“Then don’t worry about it,” Todd says softly. “I mean it was – y’know, kinda nice, to have – someone nearby.” Oh, god, why did he say that.

“It … was, wasn’t it?” Dirk actually smiles, a tiny thing, a little shy. A rush of affection makes its way through Todd’s body, but Dirk doesn’t seem to notice. “To be honest, it’s … I mean, _this_ , specifically, sleeping in the same bed – I haven’t really had the opportunity otherwise – it’s probably the only thing that’s been effective.”

“What, with – nightmares? Blackwing stuff?”

“Yes, precisely,” Dirk nods. “Usually I just stay up for the rest of the night and listen to Abba/Kpop mashups.”

Todd tries not to let his alarm show. “Well no wonder you couldn’t get back to sleep, Dirk.”

“It wasn’t really the high-powered pop music that was stopping me, you understand.” Dirk looks away from Todd’s face, something like shame on his face.

“Yeah, I know,” Todd murmurs.

They look at each other in silence for a moment. Todd realises his hand is still on Dirk’s arm and he quickly draws it back under the covers, embarrassed.

“So,” he clears his throat. “Breakfast?”

“Ooh, yes please!”

Todd narrows his eyes. “That wasn’t an offer.”

“Oh,” Dirk says, looking sad. A little _too_ sad, in fact.

Todd groans. “Okay, okay. Jesus,” he grumbles, pushing back the covers and hurrying to get his dressing gown on before the cold seeps in any more than it already has.

“Thank you, Todd! Excellent assisting.”

Todd mutters something about _assisting my ass_ as he leaves the room, to which Dirk has no reply outside of a squawk of indignation.

Farah tends to get up much earlier than either Dirk or Todd, as she’s gotten very into sunrise yoga at the recommendation of Lydia, who she maintains a healthy texting relationship with. Mostly because Lydia spams Farah’s phone at very odd hours. So when Todd enters the kitchen, Farah’s already sitting at the kitchen table fully dressed. She frowns and sips on a still-steaming cup of coffee as she scrolls through the morning’s headlines on her phone. Farah may be the only person Todd knows who actually _uses_ her phone’s news app.

“Morning,” he says, reaching for the fridge door.

“Morning,” she replies, absent-mindedly. “There’s some leftover cheesy rolls from Fancy Bakery, and some muffins from Seedy Bakery.”

“Thanks.” Todd squints into the fridge for a few more seconds before deciding on Fancy Bakery rolls. Dirk may have a sweet tooth, but Todd’s in the mood for something savoury. That said, Dirk usually has tea first thing in the morning, so Todd scrounges up a cup with a teabag from the very back of the cupboard, some milk, and a shitton of sugar for good measure.

“Is Dirk actually making you make him breakfast in bed now?” Farah’s unimpressed voice interrupts Todd’s progress.

“He had a bad dream last night,” Todd says defensively. “… But yeah, no, kinda.”

There’s a pause while Farah sips her coffee. “How do you know that?”

Todd looks over the two plates and mugs he’s going to have to find a way to juggle back in to his room. “Know what?”

“About the dream.” Farah glances up at him with a frown. “I didn’t hear anything last night.”

Todd pauses awkwardly in the middle of stretching his arm up for the shitty Ikea tray they keep on top of the fridge. “Oh,” he says, in a weirdly high-pitched voice he can’t seem to control. “Well, he just – he spent the night with me?” He doesn’t dare turn around to see Farah’s expression.

There is a very long silence.

“In, um … what capacity, exactly?” Farah is using the sort of deliberately casual voice she uses during interrogations that are going badly and making her nervous.

Todd finally decides to take the damn tray down and turn around. “Just, you know. Helping out. Like, with his Blackwing stuff, I think … it’s – a trauma thing?”

“Okay,” Farah says, slowly. “Well … That’s. Fine?”

“Yeah, totally,” Todd says, stacking the plates and mugs very quickly. “Anyway, yeah, breakfast in bed, it’s, just, whatever. See you later.”

Balancing the tray very carefully, he makes a quick retreat to his room. Dirk is sitting up against the headboard of the bed, looking rather pleased with himself and entirely incongruous with Todd’s vaguely grunge aesthetic in his pastel pyjamas.

“Fancy Bakery rolls,” Todd says, setting the tray on the bed. He hesitates, but crawls back in himself – it’s too cold to stay outside the covers.

“Ooh, thanks!” Dirk immediately bites into one of the rolls happily.

Todd nudges the mug of tea towards him. “And I made you tea.”

Dirk says something through his mouthful which Todd can’t even begin to decipher, so he doesn’t bother. Dirk swallows, smiles sunnily, and takes a large sip of the tea –

Before promptly spitting the entire thing back into the cup, a revolted expression on his face.

“Dirk!” Todd splutters. “What the fuck!”

Dirk sticks his tongue in obvious disgust, clearly trying to get the taste out of his mouth. “Ugh. Todd, how much sugar did you put in that? Actually, scratch that, what kind of tea _was_ that? It’s a travesty.”

“I put in a normal amount of sugar!” Todd protests, flushing. Maybe he _had_ overdone it. “And it was just – normal tea. Whatever we had in the cupboard.”

“Todd – Todd, _that’s Farah’s brand of tea_.”

“So? We share like, everything.”

“That brand,” Dirk says, as if Todd is suggesting something both unhygienic and deeply offensive, “tastes _disgusting_.”

“How was I supposed to know that?” Todd takes an irritated bite of his roll. “And anyway, why wasn’t there anything better if you’re such an expert on tea?”

“I ran out a couple of days ago,” Dirk sulks.

Todd rolls his eyes. “And I guess it didn’t occur to you to get more?”

Dirk shrugs. “The universe typically provides.”

“By which you mean Farah’s grocery wheel.” The grocery wheel was very good for their budget, but sadly, less so for impulsive or otherwise unplanned purchases. “I would’ve thought the sugar would help. Seeing as you have such a stupid sweet tooth.”

Dirk wrinkles his nose. “Yes, but not for _tea_. Tea is _refined_. You have to have a palate.”

“A – a _palate_?”

“Yes, which you would know, if you knew anything about tea.” Dirk raises his eyebrows challengingly.

“Unbelievable,” Todd says, shaking his head. “Unbelievable. This is the thanks I get for letting you stay the night _and_ making you breakfast.”

Dirk’s expression suddenly returns to that awful, anxious look Todd had woken up to, and Todd immediately wishes he hadn’t said anything.

Dirk fiddles with the remnants of his roll, tearing it into little shreds. “I didn’t mean – if you don’t want me to –”

“No – I was just kidding. You can, you can stay over any time,” Todd reassures Dirk. Something about the thought of Dirk trusting him like this makes him feel warm. “I mean, if it helps.”

“It does,” Dirk replies quickly. “Erm, a lot.”

“Maybe you should stay here tonight then.” The words are out of Todd’s mouth before he knows what he’s saying. When he realises what he’s offering, the flush from earlier returns to his cheeks.

“Oh!” Dirk looks strangely taken aback.

They both speak at the same moment.

“I mean, only if it’s not a bother –”

“I wasn’t trying to make you uncomfortable, it’s just –”

They stop. Todd forces himself to shut his mouth.

“I would like that,” Dirk says, sounding a little shy. Probably just embarrassed to need someone there while he sleeps. Todd would be.

Todd _is_.

“Cool,” Todd says, feeling his voice do a strange thing he can’t control again. Something off, and pitchy. “Maybe I could make you a better cup of tea tomorrow.”

“Oh, that’s _so_ sweet, but no thanks.”

Todd feels the goofy smile that was making its way across his face slide right off. “I could make you a good cup of tea!”

“Todd, you scoffed – nay, you _mocked_ the idea that you need to have a proper palate for tea. I don’t think you understand how tea works.” Dirk’s tone is infuriatingly condescending.

“Well – well, fuck that, I’m going to make you some tea anyway! And you’ll like it!” Todd has no idea why the idea that he can’t make Dirk’s favourite tea for him bothers him so much, but it _does_. He stands up and starts searching for a clean set of clothes to take to the bathroom so he can shower.

“I mean, sure, if you insist,” Dirk says, looking stupidly smug when Todd turns around to glare at him. “Do you want some help choosing the best brands?”

“No!”

Dirk’s laughter follows Todd out of the room, but Todd is determined nonetheless. He’s going to make Dirk the best goddamn cup of tea that Dirk’s ever had.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: This chapter contains some body horror/stabbing due to a pararibulitus attack. Details in the end notes.

Todd spends most of the day playing catch-up on chores, since they’re between cases and Farah’s busy trying to get their financial affairs in order. Lydia’s gift to Farah has helped quite a bit, but it’s been extremely difficult to explain to the IRS.

At the grocery store, Todd furtively makes his way to the tea and coffee aisle, feeling incredibly stupid. He really _doesn’t_ know a good tea from a bad one, but the internet has given him some ideas, so he picks up a couple of boxes that look promising and takes them home.

That night, Dirk appears in Todd’s room like an incredibly nervous moth, batting uselessly against an outdoor lamp, if said lamp was in fact the doorway. He hovers awkwardly until Todd finally takes pity on him.

“You can, uh, come in, you know.” Todd’s currently sitting in bed, wearing his pyjamas and his comfiest, rattiest hoody on top. His laptop, on which he’s been watching shitty, formulaic top ten videos that rot his brain, is perched on his lap.

As for _why_ he’s been watching them, that of course is because – because shitty, formulaic top ten videos tend to help when Todd’s feeling anxious. He has no reason to feel anxious, of course, it’s just that he’s sleeping in the same bed as his best friend, which they’ve already done once so what’s the big deal? There isn’t one. So Todd isn’t anxious.

But Dirk clearly is.

As with the previous night, he slides into Todd’s bed very quickly after shutting the door. It’s a little early for Todd to sleep, so he hesitates for a moment, uncertain of how to proceed.

“Um, I was just gonna – well, just dick around on the internet for a while longer, is that cool?”

“Yes! That’s fine. I hadn’t – planned anything,” Dirk says, looking as if it’s just occurred to him that perhaps he should have. “I can just sit here.”

Todd … feels extremely awkward about that. “You – don’t have to do that?”

But Dirk shakes his head vigorously. “I wouldn’t want to interrupt your – routines? Rituals? Ongoing sleep regimen?”

“You wouldn’t be, it’s just –” Todd thinks very carefully about how to phrase the idea that Dirk sitting next to him in bed staring into the middle distance would be very weird. “– I think you’d probably be pretty bored,” he hedges.

“Well, boredom is a small price to pay in the grand scheme of things, considering how much of your time I’m taking up. It’s very important that you get enough sleep, Todd, what with your para–”

“ _I know_ ,” Todd interrupts, telling himself that he didn’t just snap.

The look on Dirk’s face says otherwise.

He just … really doesn’t want to think about his pararibulitus when he doesn’t have to. He’s dealing with it better than Amanda ever did – at least before she met the Rowdies – because he’s already had a lot of practice taking care of Amanda. He knows that thinking about pararibulitus all the time is, in and of itself, a huge trigger. He knows the warning signs of an impending attack, and can recognise them in an instant, even in himself, which is particularly weird because Todd’s never really been good at understanding himself, or his body’s needs. He’s much better at numbing his feelings, both physical and … and everything else.

“Look, just –” Todd sighs in frustration with himself for not thinking this through before he offered it. “Okay, let’s just watch some stupid Youtube videos together.”

“ _Really_?” Dirk sounds inordinately pleased to do such a mundane activity.

“Unless you have a better plan.”

“Oh, I definitely don’t! What are you watching, by the way? It looked like a compilation of photos taken seconds before disaster.” Dirk leans in to examine the screen.

“It –” Todd shifts where he’s sitting so the screen faces away from Dirk. “… was. But we’re not watching that.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s stupid, and compilations are stupid, and if we’re going to watch stuff we might as well watch something decent.”

Dirk shrugs, looking genuinely mystified. “Well I’m just saying that SkullBreakerUltimates looked like a decent enough channel to me.”

Todd chooses not to dignify that statement with an answer. Instead, he wracks his brains for a minute before finally deciding on a plan of action.

“Okay,” he says, typing into the search bar, “Tina recommended this to me a while back. I don’t know if it’s any good, but …”

Dirk shuffles closer to look at the screen again, and Todd angles it towards him a bit more so he can see.

“‘ _Unsolved’_? Todd, you’re the one always telling me not to bring work home,” Dirk says, wrinkling his nose. “Specifically, you said, and I quote: ‘Dirk, you’ve gotta stop asking clients to come upstairs for coffee, we can’t have another Christmas tree on a rampage when there’s a kindergarten next door.’”

“Okay well first of all, that American accent was terrible, I don’t sound like that.” It wasn’t bad actually, but Todd won’t be telling Dirk that. “And second of all, this is – like, it’s fake. They go ghost hunting but they never actually find anything. It’s just these two dudes with some fake equipment sleeping in a haunted house and screaming every time the wind blows funny.”

“I thought you said you hadn’t watched it before? And that sounds _exactly_ like work.” Dirk still looks unimpressed, raising an eyebrow in skepticism.

“I haven’t. Seen it, I mean. But ghost hunting shows are all the same, it’s not hard to predict what it’s gonna be like.”

“If you say so.”

Todd scrolls down the playlist for a few seconds before deciding to just go with his gut instinct. He clicks on a video titled _Buzzfeed Unsolved: The Demonic Bellaire House_. That looks promising.

“Um, Dirk …” Todd pauses the video. “Just. So you know, these shows can be … kinda freaky? Like, you know it’s not real and everything’s fine, but they film it in a way to freak you out. Just. So you know. Because you can be weird about creepy stuff like this.”

Dirk scoffs, evidently highly offended that his ability to keep a straight face during a horror film is being impinged. “When have I _ever_ shown _anything_ other than perfectly straight-laced dignity in the face of scripted terror?”

Todd shoots Dirk a flat stare. “Jonathan Creek.”

Dirk makes a weird sniffing noise and turns his gaze away, looking extremely annoyed. But he doesn’t argue.

Todd hits play.

Half an hour later, Todd feels much more awake and anxious than he did before. Which is stupid – really stupid, considering how much terrifying shit he sees on a daily basis with Dirk and Farah, but. They’ve never encountered ghosts before. That means that ghosts definitely don’t exist, right?

“I don’t see what all the fuss was about,” Dirk says, with his hands around his knees, warm at Todd’s side. Todd lets himself find a little comfort in that.

But then his brain catches up with what Dirk said.

“Did you not see– the fucking recording picked it up!”

“A real ghost wouldn’t need to resort to a totally unverifiable and more importantly un _re_ liable piece of equipment like that,” Dirk says, rolling his eyes. “Ghosts don’t follow the laws of physics, obviously.”

Todd stares at Dirk for a second, before weakly pleading, “Please tell me that you’ve never met a ghost.”

Dirk makes a face that indicates that he’s thinking very hard about what to say next, before raising both his hands. “Eeeeh, well …”

“This isn’t happening,” Todd says faintly. “Dirk, you are not telling me that ghosts are real after we just watched _that_.”

“What, a radio telling them to buy _spaghetti_?”

“The woman _saw it throw her dog against the wall_!”

“She _said_ she did, anyway,” Dirk argues. “That’s no guarantee it actually happened.”

“How– what–” Todd sputters. “How are _you_ the skeptic here?”

“It’s clearly an ineffective method of investigation! Shane’s right to mock it!”

“Oh, come on. How would _you_ investigate a haunting?” Todd begins the slow process of shutting down his laptop. It’s a little old – he bought it second hand with the first payment he ever received as a member of the agency.

“Simple,” Dirk says, pointing, “I go to the place being haunted – with you and Farah as back-up, obviously – and I wait for the ghost to come out.”

Todd snaps the lid of his laptop shut while the shutting down symbol is still spinning. “Of course,” he mutters, dryly, “what else could possibly be so effective as standing around and waiting for something to happen?”

“I’m glad you agree, Todd! You’ve grown so much as an assistant in the time I’ve known you. It’s really quite impressive, actually.” Dirk smiles as Todd gets out of bed to put the laptop away.

“Oh, is it?” Todd asks, slipping back between the sheets. He rolls onto his side to find Dirk facing him.

“Mm-hmm. I’ve never known anyone who assisted half as well as you.” Dirk’s voice is warm, hushed in the darkness.

“That’s because you’ve never had any other assistants,” Todd counters, ignoring very thoroughly the vague sensation in the back of his head that they’re straying towards the kind of territory that, for reasons he doesn’t care to examine, he’s deemed off limits.

“Sometimes I almost think you _enjoy_ being cruel to me, Todd.” Dirk sighs dramatically and throws an arm over his forehead.

Todd stifles a laugh, then feels alarmed at how happy he feels. Not ten minutes ago he’d been jumping at shadows, and now …

“Good night, Todd.” Dirk’s voice is much quieter, now.

“Good night, Dirk,” Todd whispers back.

But he stays awake for a little bit longer, trying very hard not to think.

 

~

 

When Todd wakes up the next morning, Dirk is still absolutely gone to the world, so totally wrapped up in his blankets that Todd briefly wonders how Dirk will even begin extricate himself when he wakes. He watches Dirk breathing for a few seconds, just to check that Dirk’s still thoroughly asleep. It feels kinda creepy though, so he gets up to go make breakfast pretty quickly after that.

Farah’s not waiting in the kitchen this morning, which means she’s probably already gone downstairs to start work – though she’s frequently distracted from that by calls from Lydia or, more often, streams of snaps from Tina full of goofy filters. The latter Todd tends to get as well.

Todd begins the slow process of making toast (they still don’t have a toaster, so a pan of butter has to do,) and lets his mind wander once he’s flicked the electric kettle on. Downstairs, he hears a noise, confirming his earlier thought – Farah’s definitely gone down to work early.

Very occasionally, Todd has allowed himself to wonder if maybe there’s … _something_ between Farah and Tina. Since getting over his attraction to Farah, (and, ugh, he cringes thinking about it even now, especially their disastrous make-out while on the run – no matter what Farah might have declared at _Sound of Nothing_ about it helping her figure herself out), Todd hasn’t really thought about Farah’s love life. Or his own for that matter. Sometimes he’s thought about Dirk’s, but that’s just – because – because Dirk is very strange, and the only person Todd’s ever seen Dirk have any kind of romantic entanglement with is in fact a monster from another world, so. It only makes sense that Todd’s curious.

But Farah – she’d mentioned, a few months after the whole Bergsberg fiasco, in a very tone that was somehow both calculated and offhand, that Tina was bisexual. Todd had wondered if she was trying to give him an _opportunity_. Given how much he fucking hated talking about his– feelings, or whatever, he’d taken it, quickly slipping in the fact of his own bisexuality before saying something along the lines of _But it’s, you know, I don’t– wanna talk about it_. Now he thinks about it though, Farah might have been angling to talk about something else entirely. On top of that, only about a week or so ago, Farah had come back from a weekend in Bergsberg with newly pierced ears. She’d begun stuttering when Dirk complimented them, saying something about Tina dragging her along to get them done. And then she’d _smiled_ , dropping her gaze to the floor, looking … honestly, looking happy. Farah’s typical resting face could be described as nervous, serious, or completely badass, but she _never_ just looks … happy. Not unless she’s tipsy, or under the influence of a peace spell at a music festival, or heavily drugged up on pixie dust. Although, the last two had only happened once, so maybe Todd’s logic is off somewhere in there.

But … on balance …

Holy _shit_ , Farah’s dating Tina.

Todd _has_ to tell Dirk.

It’s at that moment that he remembers breakfast – and swears as he realises the toast is burning.

About half an hour later, he’s blaming the burnt toast for the fiasco that is Dirk attempting to drink the tea that Todd’s made him.

“Look, it’s – it’s a _wonderful_ effort, Todd, really, but …”

Todd throws himself flat on the bed, annoyed. “It’s tea. It’s a nice brand. What could I possibly have done wrong?”

Dirk holds the mug in his hand gingerly, as if afraid that it’s been poisoned. “It’s not a big deal, Todd! Honestly, if it bothers you that much, just let Farah make it – she’s usually out there in the morning, right?”

“Oh, shit, Farah. I had to tell you – wait, hang on, _Farah_? I thought you hated her tea!” Todd feels oddly stung.

“Oh her tea brand is absolutely dreadful,” Dirk agrees. “But she makes a very decent cup when she’s working with a more sophisticated brand.”

“So you’ll drink Farah’s tea but not _mine_?”

“Todd, it’s _fine_ ,” Dirk says, in a very fond and very irritating voice, “You just don’t understand tea, and that’s okay. And it really is so sweet that you tried for me, I’m very touched, but I can make my own!”

Todd narrows his eyes and turns his gaze up at Dirk, cross-legged beside him. “Dirk,” he says, in a dangerously calm voice, “I am going to make you your fucking tea.”

Dirk stares at Todd with wide eyes for a second. His hands, still wrapped around the apparently disgusting cup that Todd had made for him, tighten for just a moment.

“If … I mean, who am _I_ to say but, if it means that much to _you_ ,” Dirk says, his head doing that weirdly adorable thing it does where he juts it around like a lost pigeon, “then – yes, of course, I accept your tea.”

“I don’t want you to _accept_ the tea,” Todd groans. “I just want you to – to _like_ it. And don’t – don’t give me any clues or anything. I wanna figure it out.”

“Ooh, have I finally given you a taste for _mystery_ after all these years? I knew one day you’d begin longing for it between cases –”

“That’s not it,” Todd interrupts. Actually, to be honest, he doesn’t know _what_ it is. It’s just … very, very important to him that he is the person who knows how Dirk likes his stupid tea. “Anyway, I was gonna tell you about Farah,” he continues, before Dirk can ask any questions.

“What’s going on with Farah?” Dirk frowns, puzzled.

Todd sits up, taking a sip of his coffee. “I think she might be, kinda, dating Tina?”

Dirk gives a huge gasp of delight. “Oh my god, _really_?”

“I mean, I think? Like, you remember when she came back from Bergsberg and she was all, like, happy? And – and she texts Tina all the time, and then she was talking to me a few weeks ago, and she said that Tina’s bisexual, so …”

“Fascinating,” Dirk breathes, “Todd – is this your first _hunch_?”

“What?” Todd blinks. “Dirk – no – that’s not the important part of this conversation?”

Dirk shakes his head, leaning in conspiratorially. Todd feels his stomach lurch, feeling cornered.

“I rather think it _is_ , actually,” Dirk declares excitedly. “How did you figure it out?”

“I dunno, I just …” Todd feels awkward trying to explain how his thought process … happened. “It’s just like I said, how she came back from Bergsberg seeming really happy, and the whole … bisexual conversation …”

“Brilliant! If you weren’t already a partner, I’d promote you,” Dirk says, sounding extremely impressed.

“Gee, thanks.”

After _that_ , the rest of the morning is inevitably wasted in bickering. Todd settles into the lightness of it all with more grace than he knew he was capable of.

 

~

 

Todd goes through the better part of the day with a vague sense of anxiety pressing against his stomach before he realises the cause. He and Dirk had never actually discussed whether they were planning to share a bed again that night. Maybe it was just a one-time thing? A … two-time thing?

That night, he sits in bed, barely looking at his laptop. He scrolls through his phone for half an hour before plugging it in to charge and lying back to stare at the ceiling.

Why does this matter so much?

_Because, because_ , whispers a nasty voice at the back of his mind. _You want more than you deserve. You want more than all the blessings you have. You want_ –

“Todd?” Dirk’s voice is hesitant from the doorway.

Todd sits up so fast he feels a twinge in his lower back. “Dirk! Hey. Um … did you wanna –”

“Yes,” Dirk says, so fast that Todd immediately feels stupid for ever doubting the idea that Dirk would pass by an opportunity to cuddle with a friend.

And so it goes. For the next few nights, and for the next few weeks after that. Dirk sleeps in Todd’s bed every night, and when Dirk’s nightmares come, Todd rolls over and sleepily throws an arm around him until his shallow breaths become deeper, and his pounding heart slows, and the muffled sounds of his crying turn to vague half-sentences of nonsense dreams.

That’s a fun discovery. Dirk sleep-talks. At speed.

It’s kind of alarming, the first morning that Todd wakes up to the sound of Dirk crying out, “Todd! I need to put an ice pack on it!”

“On what?!” Todd can barely open his eyes but is already halfway out of bed.

“Don’t know,” Dirk says, and rolls over.

Todd blinks blearily at the shape of Dirk in the bed. “… Dirk?”

Dirk makes a very fucking weird noise at that point, something like a deflating saxophone. “’M ’n elephant,” he mutters.

Todd stares at him for a few seconds before it clicks that Dirk is still asleep. He collapses back into the bed, resolving to make fun of Dirk absolutely mercilessly when he wakes up.

Todd keeps trying to make Dirk his tea in the morning, but that’s probably Todd’s least favourite part of their routine. No matter what he tries, he can’t get it right. Admittedly, he is getting better – he knows things now, about steeping times, and fair-trade blends, and the medicinal properties of echinacea. But there’s always _something_ wrong.

“Not bad,” Dirk announces, after Todd tries a fancy white China Jasmine blend. “But you’ve overboiled. White teas have to be added to water at a _very_ particular temperature.”

Todd, who had gone several blocks out of his way on the walk home the previous night to get this blend, and who had timed the steeping of said blend down to the second, glares murderously at the teacup.

A few days later, he tries a simple black blend, which is much less hassle than a white or green. He adds honey to it, because Todd’s discovered that while Dirk hates sugar in his tea, honey is in fact one of his favourite additives. Dirk sips on the black blend cautiously, while Todd watches. The whole endeavour is possibly beginning to _do_ something to Todd’s brain.

“It’s good,” Dirk admits, finally.

Todd gives a wordless groan of relief as he falls face down on the pillow.

“But …”

“ _What_ ,” Todd says, muffled by the pillow.

“Well, it’s perfectly fine tea, Todd. But it’s not my favourite.”

Todd contemplates his own mortality for a moment. Then he sits up again. He scrubs a hand over his face and fights the urge to make a very undignified noise.

“Okay,” he sighs. “Okay. We’ll try again tomorrow.”

He peeks out at Dirk from behind his fingers to find Dirk looking hesitant.

“You know, Todd, it’s really – you don’t have to …”

Todd feels himself softening beneath Dirk’s worried gaze. “Yeah, I know. Don’t worry about it. I want to.”

Dirk smiles, and for a second they’re just looking at each other in silence. The room is chilly, but they’ve both got the duvet over their legs, and a tray of breakfast food between them, and Todd feels so, so warm.

But warmth like that never lasts. Not when there’s cases to be solved. Not when Todd has a disease that can be provoked by the most random, incomprehensible triggers – and sometimes, nothing at all. It’s impossible to know why it happens when it happens.

Maybe it’s the fact that they’ve solved a case in the space of twenty-four whirlwind hours, maybe it’s the fact that Todd spent half the day chasing down a crazed and totally invisible man, or maybe there’s no real rhyme or reason to it at all – but Todd wakes up one night to a shard of ice protruding through his chest.

_Breathe_.

Amanda’s never actually had the chance to talk Todd through an attack. But for some reason, he always hears her voice in his head when they happen. He draws breath, and feels the ice slide through his organs. The agony of the sensation causes him to cry out, but that only causes a deeper stab of pain. _Breathe. You have to breathe_. It’s hard – it’s so hard to think – to remind himself that it isn’t real, _it can’t be, it can’t be_ –

“Todd?” Dirk’s voice is alarmed and very close.

Todd can’t answer him. _Take a breath_. He feels the ice slicing him right through. _Another breath_.

“Todd, is it –” Dirk’s voice sounds so faint.

Todd’s eyes are screwed shut. He forces them open. Dirk, sitting next to him in their bed. Dirk, panic on his face. He doesn’t know what to do. He’s still half-asleep. Todd has to – he has to –

“Pills,” he chokes out, feeling the sound of his voice reverberate through the ice. _Breathe. Again_. “Table.”

Luckily, Dirk seems to understand. He leaps over Todd – passing through the ice, because it isn’t real, it isn’t real, _it can’t be real_ – and scrambles to look through Todd’s bedside drawer.

It takes him a few precious seconds to find the orange pill bottle and shakily pour them out into his hand. Todd can’t move, so Dirk has to put them in his mouth. Todd swallows them down, and the cold, violent surge of pain that follows nearly has him bringing them back up again.

The medication that he and Amanda take – because even with the Rowdies, Amanda takes precautions – is fast acting. It’s intended to be preventative, but when an attack occurs, a handful still helps. It might just be placebo, but Todd’s never dared question it. Either way, it still takes ten or so minutes for the pills to have any effect. And with a disease like theirs, those ten minutes could kill them.

Todd searches for an anchor, and finds Dirk’s hand in his. He can’t speak, but he can breathe –breathe like he promised Farah he would do, all those times on the road when he fell in front of her, drowning in thin air.

“It’s going to be okay, Todd, please, just keep breathing,” Dirk rambles. His voice is unstable – Todd can hear the tears Dirk is repressing, just below the surface. “It’s okay, you’re okay. We’re okay. Just breathe.”

Todd does.

He breathes until he forgets how to do anything else.

And, bit by agonising bit, the ice recedes.

When Todd finally has the strength to open his eyes again, he sees tears on Dirk’s face. Apparently he hadn’t repressed them that well after all.

Instead of ice, there is a warm weight on Todd’s chest, and this one doesn’t hurt. It feels comforting, and solid, and real; the sensation of Dirk’s hand pressed to his heart. Though Todd’s chest is sore with the ghost of what had been pain, he moves his hand to cover Dirk’s and keep it pressed there.

“Thank you,” he whispers.

Dirk sniffles loudly, and lies down beside him, his head resting on the same pillow. Todd waits a few minutes before attempting to roll over and face him, taking it easy on his exhausted body. Dirk’s seen all this before. Todd’s _felt_ all this before. But it never stops being equally as terrifying, every single time.

When Todd does roll over, Dirk is watching him carefully.

“You don’t …” Dirk’s voice is undisguised despair. He swallows. “You don’t deserve this.”

Todd closes his eyes. He thinks very carefully about what he’s about to say, because he already knows that Dirk won’t like it, because Dirk is a good person. Dirk is … the best person Todd’s ever met. He won’t accept the truth.

“Dirk, listen …” Todd begins, his voice still hoarse, “I think … I think I _am_ a better person now. Than I was, I mean. When I met you, I was so … I was a fucking mess, and I was letting this one mistake just rule over me. And letting that happen, it didn’t just hurt me, it hurt Amanda too. And our parents. Y’know, they still aren’t speaking to me?” Todd’s voice catches, and he clears his throat. “Which is fair.”

Dirk opens his mouth, but Todd stops him with a look, asking to be allowed to continue. Dirk shuts his mouth.

“And the thing is, I felt too guilty to speak to them even back when I was still pretending that I got better. I barely know them anymore. And – and then _you_ came into my life and just – blew everything apart. And I got … I became a better person. I told people the truth. I’m … I’m working for an agency I love and I have … I have real friends now, I have you and Farah.”

Dirk allows a tiny smile at that, and so does Todd.

He forces himself to keep going. “But … Dirk, the truth is – you’ll never, ever convince me that I don’t deserve to have this disease. You, and Bart, and all of it – you’re proof that the Universe knows. It understands. Me and Amanda, we saw it from the other side. So that means the Universe wants me to be sick. And I deserve to be sick, for what I did, okay? I deserve this.”

There it is. The truth. Todd’s gotten so good at telling it, especially when it hurts.

“Fuck the Universe.”

Todd blinks. “… Excuse me?”

“I said –” Dirk looks, to Todd’s complete amazement, utterly furious. “I’m _saying_ , Todd, _fuck the Universe_.”

This conversation is – not going where Todd thought it would. “Uh. Not to like, criticise, but isn’t your whole – like, _life_ about doing what the Universe wants?”

“Being a leaf on the stream of creation doesn’t mean I have to _agree_ with it. And it’s – no, I’m sorry Todd, but it’s frankly completely _ridiculous_ and _bizarrely_ morose that you think that this is some kind of – of just punishment, for whatever mistakes you may have made when you were young.”

Todd stares at Dirk in amazement, even as he sees Dirk’s passion building. “They were some – pretty fucking awful mistakes, Dirk. I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to say –”

“No! Shut up!” Dirk’s eyes are wide with horrified sympathy. “That’s – good grief, Todd, is that what you’ve been thinking this whole time? That you deserve this?”

“Well –”

Dirk gives Todd a pointed look. “Does _Amanda_ deserve to be sick?”

“Wh- no, of course not!”

“Then why is she?”

“Because that’s not – it’s not …” Todd fumbles for an answer, already knowing Dirk has him trapped.

“ _It’s not how the Universe works_ ,” Dirk says, triumphantly. “And even if it did – if it _did_ , I’d still choose you over it. The whole Universe could bugger right off. _You don’t deserve this_. You never will.”

Todd looks into Dirk’s eyes, bright and full of fire in the night, and he thinks, _oh, of course_.

He’s in love with Dirk. He’s been in love with Dirk for a while.

The realisation is – terrifying.

“Todd?” Dirk sounds cautious. Probably thinking that Todd’s having another attack.

“I’m okay,” Todd lies. It comes to him as easily as breathing – this, the worst of his old habits. “I just – that’s – a lot. Um. Thank you.”

“Well. You’re welcome,” Dirk says, now beginning to sound a little embarrassed at his outburst.

“I’m … I’m gonna go back to sleep, I think,” Todd says.

“Oh!” Dirk’s expression transforms into one of complete understanding. “Of course. Sorry. You just – yes. Sleep is good, sleep is fantastic. I’ll stop saying words now.”

Despite himself, Todd smiles. “Good night, Dirk.”

Dirk’s voice softens. “Good night, Todd.”

Todd turns away from Dirk’s understanding eyes and gentle voice, feeling Dirk’s hand slide away from his heart and fall onto the mattress. Todd swallows past the lump in his throat. His heart races with the truth – his hands are shaking with it. Actually, that may just be the medication.

It’s definitely _not_ the medication when Dirk slips his arm around Todd’s middle and scoots up close to him, a line of warmth and safety at his back. Todd feels his heart stutter. Thank god it’s only _after_ that that Dirk moves his hand to Todd’s chest again, resting right over his heart.

“Is this … okay?” Dirk sounds worried.

“Yeah,” Todd murmurs back.

God, but it _is_. Or isn’t – depending on the point of view. Todd can’t decide. He spends the next half hour trying, as Dirk begins to drift off again. Dirk’s hand on his heart. Dirk’s arm over his side. Dirk at his back, keeping him safe. Dirk all around him, beside him, inescapable. Dirk, who he loves. Dirk, who he’s in love with.

Todd falls asleep to the sensation of Dirk’s breath against the skin on the back of his neck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Todd wakes up to a pararibulitis attack that makes him feel like he's being stabbed. He comes down with Dirk's help. If you want to skip this, stop reading at _Maybe it’s the fact that they’ve solved a case_ , and start reading again at _When Todd finally has the strength to open his eyes again_.
> 
> Let me know what you thought! I know this was a monster of a chapter, my apologies lmao.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings: there is a brief description of a pararibulitus attack involving hot water. Also just a general warning for Todd's poor state of mind. Detailed description in the end notes.

Todd has somehow found himself sleeping in the same bed, every night, with the person he’s in love with. That’s cool. Obviously it’s _not_ cool, but it’s – it is definitely something. Something that Todd is coping with like a normal person. He makes Dirk the stupid tea, and watches _Buzzfeed Unsolv_ ed with a brave face for the sake of his own dignity, and he keeps a very respectful distance between the two of them while they’re awake. All things considered he’s – _probably_ not taking advantage. He hopes he’s not. He’ll never forgive himself if he is.

It’s just that … the problem is, no matter how careful Todd is when he’s awake, the two of them _aren’t_ always awake, as is kind of implied by the whole “sleeping together” thing in the first place. Dirk, strictly speaking, has never had the best instincts for the concept of personal space – or, in this case, boundaries that his best friend may or may not have constructed to protect his own feelings. _Of course_ Dirk keeps finding ways to cheerfully and obliviously tear down every brick of the pathetically ineffective wall Todd’s trying to build around his heart.

Dirk, asleep, will completely envelop Todd, wrapping his arms around Todd’s waist and frequently throwing a leg over for good measure. And Todd’s body, traitor that it is, won’t even try to throw him off, as is evidenced by the sheer number of times that Todd’s woken up in the middle of the night with his hands against Dirk’s skin. Every time – without fail – it makes his pulse race and his stomach drop.

And it’s beginning to happen more and more often as the months go by. Even unconscious, Todd is becoming used to the presence of someone else in the bed, and as the freezing Winter marches on, he wakes each morning huddled up to Dirk for warmth. Todd’s lost count of the number of times he’s started awake in the middle of the night to find one arm cradling Dirk’s head and the other around his waist, pulling him closer, and _closer_ , right into his dreams.

There’s this sweet, terrible ache that swoops right through him whenever Dirk touches him, and it doesn’t appear to discriminate between their night-time closeness and their normal everyday interactions. Dirk will take the teacup from Todd’s hands each morning, which often necessitates a lot of careful manoeuvring due to the heat of the cup, and their fingers will brush against each other. And that sweet, sharp pain will return. It’s fucking ridiculous that even something that innocuous makes Todd feel the need to hold his breath. _Todd_ is fucking ridiculous for acting like some moony, lovestruck teenager every time he’s near Dirk.

It’s not as if Todd’s never had a crush on someone before, or even just been attracted to a friend. (Though admittedly the last time he’d done the latter, he’d completely humiliated himself. It’s a miracle that Farah’s still his friend at all.) So really, there’s no good reason for Todd to be acting so melodramatic over the whole thing. And if Todd can keep pretending this _is_ just a crush, and his feelings will be so easily dismissed, then he won’t have to consider what to do next. Not that there _is_ a ‘next.’ A ‘next’ would imply that these feelings have somewhere to go, and Todd’s firmly convinced that they can stay right where they are for the foreseeable future.

Todd quite possibly could have lived for _years_ in his actually-more-comfortable-than-you’d-think cocoon of violently repressed longing, but unfortunately, he’s forgotten one key fact: he lives with Farah Black. And Farah, for all that she may have her own struggles with self-doubt and anxiety, is a very good investigator in possession of some fantastic instincts. It’s only a matter of time before Farah picks up on what’s happening, especially when it’s happening in the very same apartment she lives in.

Todd probably doesn’t help the situation by leaving the door to his bedroom open one morning – the _one_ morning, in fact, that Farah decides to sleep in, meaning that Farah definitely sees Dirk asleep in Todd’s bed on her way down the hallway to the kitchen. Todd knows this because she rounds the corner to the kitchen doorway with wide eyes, and stands there, staring at Todd for a very long moment before speaking.

“Todd,” she begins, slowly, “are you – ? I don’t you know if you know this, but Dirk’s ... he’s – asleep in your bed?”

Todd pretends like this is not a conversation he’s been avoiding since the very first time that Dirk slept in his bed, back when Farah had given him such a suspicious _look_ that Todd had fled immediately to his room.

“Oh, um. Yeah, no, I – I know,” he says, casually, setting down his coffee.

Farah’s face immediately melts into a sympathetic expression. “Another nightmare?”

Oh, god. Todd really, really wants to lie about this. But he promised Amanda, no more lies. And given what a huge-ass secret he’s been keeping from Dirk for months now, he should … probably tell the truth about this.

“Not – not a nightmare, exactly. He’s … been staying with me,” he admits, forcing the words out, even though it’s excruciating.

“Oh!” Farah’s voice rises with surprise. “How – how long has that been happening?”

Todd grips his mug of coffee very tightly. “A few months.”

With a look of slow, slightly pained consideration, Farah lowers herself into a seat at the kitchen table. “… A few months,” she repeats, deliberately.

“Yeah, it’s … y’know, he’s – Dirk.” Todd cringes slightly. “It’s not a big deal?”

“I mean,” Farah says, narrowing her eyes, “I wasn’t assuming it was until you said that.”

“Well, you – you shouldn’t. Because it isn’t. We just sleep in the same bed and it’s fine and normal.” Jesus, is this how Dirk feels when he freaks out and can’t stop talking?

“I didn’t say it _wasn’t_ fine.”

“It was – you – you know, you implied it,” Todd says accusingly, desperate to turn this around somehow, because _he does not want to be having this conversation_.

“No, I didn’t!” Farah looks, as Dirk would probably put it, _rather cross_.

Todd really doesn’t need Dirk’s voice in his head right now though. “I just don’t see why we’re talking about it, that’s all!”

“Todd, why are you …” Farah pauses, eyes widening. “Oh my god. Do you li– do you love Dirk?”

Todd’s not supposed to be lying. He’s _not supposed to be lying anymore_ , especially not to his friends. “I,” he says, diplomatically, “think … very highly. Of Dirk.”

An incredulous expression breaks onto Farah’s face. “Oh my god. Oh my god, _Todd_. Let me guess, you – you ‘greatly esteem him,’ huh? You ‘ _like_ him?’” Farah shakes her head. “‘Think very highly of him!’ Unbelievable. Jane Austen herself. _Jane Austen_.”

“Okay, what – what does Jane Austen have to do with anything?” Todd’s lost the thread of the conversation entirely.

“You _literally quoted_ – no. No, no, mm-mm. No.” Farah holds up a finger. “We’re not derailing.” She jabs the finger at Todd. “You’re in love with Dirk.”

Todd says the first thing that pops into his head, which happens to be a variant of ‘ _no you_.’ “Well, you – you’re dating Tina!”

Farah’s mouth drops open and she fumbles desperately for words for a comically long time. Todd just raises his eyebrows and points back at her, triumphant.

She shuts her mouth. “I’m not dating Tina!”

“Yes, you are!”

“No, I’m not!” Farah sounds genuinely confused now. “Todd, I would _know_ if I was dating Tina. Which I’m not.” She scoffs for several more seconds, shaking her head almost violently. “That’s not – that’s not even – I’m just, and she’s ... The idea of –”

Todd throws up his hands. “Then what the hell was all that when you went and stayed with her for the weekend?”

“She – we – I got my ears pierced! She knew a guy. I just, I always wanted to do it, and I did it, and Tina knew a guy, what’s the big deal?” Farah’s voice is rising in pitch, but not volume, as if she’s afraid someone will overhear their argument.

Todd knows that this is probably the case because he’s just thought of the same thing. “Why not do it here?” he points out, lowering his voice.

“What?”

“Dirk and I would have come along. We went with you when you had to get that blood test. It wouldn’t have been a big deal. Why’d you go all the way to Bergsberg just to get your ears pierced?”

“I – didn’t –”

“No! You _didn’t_ just go there to get your ears pierced! Because _you went to see Tina_!”

“Just because I went to see Tina doesn’t mean we’re dating!” Farah hisses, before immediately looking mortified at having admitted to anything at all.

Except that pronouncement really does throw a wrench in Todd’s theory. “… You’re _not_ dating?”

“No!”

“… But you … You do like her, right?”

“I …” Farah shakes her head, eyes wildly jumping from place to place in an attempt to avoid Todd’s stare. She swallows. “Yes. I like her. Oh, god, I like her _so much_ ,” she finally confesses.

Todd, despite provoking Farah into this admission, can’t think of a single thing to say in response.

Farah blinks rapidly, as if holding back tears – but there’s no wetness to her eyes. They’re shining with something else.

“She’s … just … when we met, and then after everything, when we started talking more …” Farah smiles, and looks up at the ceiling. “When I’m around her, she makes me feel like I’m – like I’m this, crazy-badass, competent, brilliant person. She makes me forget all the … the things I hate about myself, and I feel like … who I was supposed to be.” Farah finally looks down, turning her gaze to her hands, which are twisting together on the table. “And she – she’s fun! I mean, I’ve never just – _relaxed_ around someone like I do around her. She just … I mean, I think I understand how you felt when you met Dirk now. I … I think I get it.”

Todd’s heart jumps into his throat. “Wh– I don’t – there’s nothing between me and –”

Farah shoots Todd a murderous look. Todd suddenly remembers that there are many, many guns in this apartment, and all of them are owned by the woman sitting in front of him.

“… Yeah, okay. Okay,” he says, admitting defeat.

There’s a few seconds of silence between them as they both digest what they’ve confessed.

“So.” Farah looks up at him. “I like, um, Tina. And you … like Dirk?”

“I … uh,” Todd says, hesitantly. But, in for a penny … “I’m … in love with him.”

“Oh,” Farah says, eyes widening. “That’s … And you’re … sleeping with him?”

“Just sleeping! I mean, I don’t even know if Dirk …” If Dirk what? If he … has sexual feelings? _Romantic_ feelings? “That’s beside the point.”

“I mean … I didn’t want to assume, but Dirk has always seemed a little – um, extremely gay?”

“No, yeah, he –” Todd winces at himself. “I’m pretty sure he’s gay? But he’s never … said anything about it, really, except that he definitely didn’t have a thing with the rainbow monster, which, that – that could mean anything.”

“Yeah, that’s fair,” Farah admits. “So is it just … you? Are you worried he doesn’t like you, specifically?”

Todd snorts, unable to help himself. “Dirk – loves a lot of people, and if I was gonna bet on anything I’d bet on him definitely being gay, but even then, he’s not gonna – he’s not gonna like me like – that.”

This conversation is horrifyingly juvenile of both of them. Todd wonders whether it’s possible that other adults talk like this, or if it’s just because he and Farah are … the way they are.

“I don’t know,” Farah says, doubtfully. “I hate to point out the obvious, but he kind of adores you already.”

“He _adores_ you too, you know.”

“Sure, but he’s not sleeping in my bed.”

“That’s not – look, I don’t know why you’re being so – so accusatory considering you haven’t asked Tina out either!” Todd folds his arms.

Farah opens her mouth and looks like she’s about to begin the whole process of scoffing and spluttering all over again, but she clearly thinks better of it. “Well, we’ll just have to – have to – keep doing what we’re doing then!”

“Fine by me!”

“Fine!”

They stare at one another for approximately five seconds before one of them cracks a smile, and then they’re just laughing at the whole thing – the situation they’ve found themselves in, the feelings they’re both harbouring for other people, the _ridiculousness_ of the fact that they’re having this conversation with each other, two years after making out and deciding that actually, that wasn’t them.

At that moment, Dirk finally decides to make an appearance, wandering into the room with all the elegance of a hyperactive duck recently woken from a year-long coma.

“What’s going on guys?” he asks cheerfully, pulling up a chair, utterly oblivious to the previous conversation Farah and Todd had been having about him.

“Nothing, just, the news was saying –”

“Oh, it’s this old Vine that Amanda just texted –”

They glance, panicked, at one another. Todd shuts his mouth firmly, leaving Farah to flounder.

“What – Todd said. This Vine Amanda sent. It was in the … news.”

“Ooh, can I see?”

“No,” Todd and Farah say in unison.

And that pretty much sums up that particular morning in the Brotzman-Black-Gently household.

 

~

 

A few days after the whole accusing-each-other-of-cowardice-in-the-face-of-love fiasco, Farah and Todd come to the silent but mutual decision to never talk about their feelings again – or at least, not for the foreseeable future. This, in Todd’s opinion, is a relief. Talking about his emotions generally feels like standing up naked in front of everyone who knew him in high school and shouting, _Hey! Look at me! See the pitiful wonders of my every mortifying mistake_! It’s not just a matter of Todd not deserving the kind of care and consideration that normal people do (though he definitely _doesn’t_ – he’d given up the right to that the first time he told his parents that he’d seen his hands covered in blood in the middle of band practice, and Jesus, isn’t that an apt metaphor?) It’s also the fact that Todd, in order to one day be worth even _considering_ as more than his worst mistake, needs to take care of people – whether it’s Amanda, or Farah, or Dirk.

Caretakers are the active party of any relationship. They don’t sit back and place all their burdens on everyone around them. They don’t make selfish decisions and rationalise them with false perceptions of persecution and denial. Caretakers are patient, and kind, and so, so much _better_ than people like Todd, who can’t do more than copy them in a pale imitation of their virtue. Todd wishes he could be a genuine caretaker, but he isn’t. He knows he isn’t. He’s just some asshole with a guilt complex, and that’s not the same thing at all.

All of this is further complicated by the fact that Todd has – however deservedly – a disease which will knock him out of play literally any time it pleases. It’s only a few days after a really bad attack – his hands boiling in hot water, the skin sloughing off before his eyes, in public, in _front of people_ – that Dirk decides to take them both out to a nearby café. This is so that Todd, in Dirk’s own words, can “try some of the good stuff.” “Good stuff” here referring to tea, because of course it is. Todd doesn’t even _like_ tea.

The café itself is actually pretty nice. It’s all brickwork and lightbulbs, just like every other café in Seattle, but the walls are stacked with books which patrons can borrow or leave as they like, and the menu’s not bad. Dirk chatters enthusiastically all the way through brunch (and doesn’t Todd’s younger, punk-er self cringe at the phrase _brunch._ ) Despite how low Todd’s been over the last couple of days, it helps.

Being around Dirk always helps, even when it hurts. Honestly, _especially_ when it hurts – because if it hurts, then that must mean they’re close. After the attack, Dirk had pulled Todd into his arms that night, and run his hand up and down Todd’s back gingerly, as if afraid he’d do it wrong. Todd had still felt the burn of humiliation in the pit of stomach – the only thing worse than an attack is an attack in front of strangers – but there in Dirk’s arms, something else bloomed, something which drowned out the voices in the back of his mind that said _you deserve this_.

But – brunch is helpful, too.

“Todd,” Dirk says, in a very cautious tone, while Todd is attempting not to make a disgusted face at the taste of the tea blend Dirk had insisted on. “I was wondering – have you spoken to Amanda?”

Todd shrugs. “Not lately. She texts, sometimes. Why?

Dirk stirs his tea. The teabag is a fancy pyramid of mesh, with a string wrapped around a wire leading to a leaf shaped tag, which is really just overkill. Dirk sets this aside as he clears his throat. “Well, because … Having considered the situation at varying lengths and in the greatest of depths, and acknowledging that I have a wide scope for error, I’ve been thinking about whether it might be a good idea – or not a good idea, but certainly _an_ idea, given her expertise on the matter –”

“Dirk.”

“Right, yes, sorry. I think you should probably speak to Amanda about – er, coping strategies.”

Todd wants to pretend he didn’t hear Dirk. He really, really wants to pretend he doesn’t understand what Dirk’s talking about. But he does – he knows Dirk wants him to ask Amanda how to deal with the pararibulitus better.

Obviously this means that Todd’s been a huge burden on Farah and Dirk lately. That’s cool. That’s fine. He’ll deal with it.

“I don’t – we don’t really talk about that stuff, for … obvious reasons.”

“… The … lying to her about having it?” Dirk looks genuinely uncertain, but Todd shoots him a flat look anyway.

“Yes, Dirk. The lying.”

Dirk nods sagely. “Yes, but, see – it’s been a while now, and I know things are – if not normal, considering the radical direction that the Universe has taken you both in, then at the very least _better_. So I thought that, perhaps, the time might have come to broach the subject again?”

Todd’s stomach roils with shame. The thought of asking Amanda for advice about how to deal with the attacks is something he can barely even tolerate _thinking_ about, let alone actually doing. He wants to go home. He wants to lock himself away and never see anyone ever again.

But before Todd can explain to Dirk that talking to Amanda is a bad idea, and also he’s so fucking sorry for being such a burden on Dirk and Farah lately, he’ll be better, he’ll _fix things_ – Dirk continues on.

“I just – sometimes, occasionally, I _might_ worry that you’re still – punishing yourself, by denying yourself access to the very tools which would alleviate your own suffering. And as your best friend I feel it’s only my duty to point out that, as we discussed, it’s not like the Universe is punishing you deliberately for what happened with Amanda, so you might as well – you might as well take full advantage of all the resources available to you.”

The hot shame burning through Todd’s middle is still there, but it’s tempered by the understanding of what Dirk’s trying to convey – that he cares, and just wants Todd to be okay. Sometimes it still blindsides Todd, the fact that there are people in his life now who know him – know what he did – and still want him to be happy.

“I dunno,” he sighs. “I still – I don’t really wanna talk to her about it just yet. I know it’s been two years since everything, but it’s … I can’t afford to mess things up again.”

“And you’re – what, just supposed to suffer in the meantime?” Dirk looks horrified.

“It’s not suffering, it’s just – look. Honestly, there’s probably not much she could tell me that I don’t already know, all right? I was her carer. I know all the signs and symptoms, I know the triggers, I know what to do when it happens. The only difference now is that she’s got the Rowdies.”

“I wish –” Dirk cuts himself off. He looks down at his tea and folds his hands in his lap. “I just wish sometimes that I was – holistic in a – a different sense. If I was like the Rowdies, then maybe I could … actually do something useful. Or if I actually _was_ psychic, at least then I could predict when it happens, and I could – prepare, or something –”

“No, Dirk, that’s not …” Todd trails off, pained. “It’s not helpful to think about it that way, okay? It just, it is what it is. And besides, you know, I – I wouldn’t have you any other way.” He takes a long sip of his weird tea just then, because the sick, swooping sensation in his stomach is back, and his stomach’s been through a lot today, so a little tea shouldn’t hurt.

“Oh! Well, I mean, that’s just …” Dirk trails off, but he smiles goofily, and Todd smiles back.

That smile might be Todd’s favourite sight in – well, the Universe. But it’s only as Dirk sips on his tea again, looking very pleased with himself, that Todd realises it’s the same smile Dirk makes first thing in the morning, when Todd brings him his latest attempt at the perfect cup. A thought occurs to him.

“Dirk, you know, you probably shouldn’t have taken me here,” he says, casually. “This is your favourite tea place, right? So – this must be your favourite tea.”

Dirk grins. “Nice try, Todd, but as a detective, I would never be so foolish as to lead you straight into the answer. Unless you just asked me of course, because this whole thing was in fact your idea.”

“You’re telling me this isn’t your favourite tea?” Todd frowns. “You – literally looked like you were gonna cry from happiness when they brought it out.”

“That was because this is _your_ first time trying it.”

Todd resolves not to mention his real feelings on the tea. That kind of lie is probably allowed.

Dirk continues, shaking his head. “No, Todd, this is in fact, _still_ not my favourite.”

“Damn,” Todd sighs. “I guess I’ll just have to work it out of you somehow.”

Dirk makes a noise not unlike the noises Farah made when Todd first accused her of being in love with Tina, and hastily gulps down his tea. Unfortunately this leads to a coughing fit that takes the better part of three minutes to resolve. By that point, Todd’s more concerned with making sure Dirk can breathe than figuring out _why_ he started choking in the first place. And the question only pops up in his mind as he’s falling asleep that night, listening to Dirk breathing on the other side of the bed. Todd still hasn’t figured it out by the time sleep finally claims him.

 

~

 

Todd keeps trying new teas. But the fancier the brand, the more smugly-assured Dirk seems to get that Todd won’t ever guess it right. At this point, Todd knows how to make good tea – god, does he ever know how to make good tea – but it’s the blend itself that eludes him. It doesn’t seem to matter that Todd understands how to make sure that white and green teas aren’t added to overboiled water, or that he can time steeping black tea down to the second, or that he has an encyclopaedic knowledge of herbal blends, (at least one of which had given Dirk an allergic reaction – but the less said about that, the better,) because none of this is helpful in guessing which will be the blend that finally leads him to the answer.

Todd still definitely isn’t into tea. He’ll probably always prefer coffee, but still, after being forced to consume so much of the stuff in the pursuit of Dirk’s favorite, he’s unfortunately starting to develop – and he cringes at the word – a palate. Turns out Dirk wasn’t kidding about that after all.

At this point he’s starting to wonder if Dirk doesn’t _have_ a favorite tea, or if Dirk interpreted the word “favorite” to mean, like … the singular best cup of tea that he ever had. Maybe Dirk’s favorite tea was made for him in 2002 by a goblin who enchanted it to temporarily give Dirk additional superpowers.

… Or maybe Todd’s finally losing it.

Todd spends so much time thinking about tea nowadays that even _he_ can’t deny it’s because he’s trying to block out – the other thing. His … feelings. Because Farah’s right. Dirk is very much sleeping in Todd’s bed and Dirk is very much cuddling up to him in the middle of the night. And Dirk has also frequently been known to sing Todd’s praises to the moon and stars above. And sometimes, when they’ve just solved a case or Todd’s done something particularly helpful, he looks at Todd like – like …

But that’s the problem. Dirk’s _always_ done those things. Todd figured out a long time ago that Dirk was a very lonely person when they first met – a very lonely person whose future self had already promised him a friendship with Todd. Dirk has never questioned whether or not Todd should be his best friend. If the Universe willed it, so be it, and admittedly, being fated to meet through a stable time loop is a pretty badass origin story for a friendship. But Todd knows better. Todd knows that even though he’s a better person now than he was, he’s not best friend material, as he’s proven countless times before – he’s gotten angry with Dirk, blaming him for the shitty things that have happened since they met. It’s been years since Todd did that, but still. Still. He’s self-aware enough to know that Dirk has extremely low standards.

And all of those facts coalesce into one simple truth: Todd barely scrapes a pass as Dirk’s best friend, so where the hell does he get off on wanting something – not something _more_ , but – something _different_? Something that could hurt Dirk so much more. Something that could endanger both of them. It isn’t fair for Todd to want that. It isn’t fair for Todd to ask something of Dirk that, even if Dirk were willing to give it, would hurt him.

Plus, there’s the matter of Todd not really knowing for sure that Dirk even likes … honestly, _anyone_. Dirk may come off as incredibly gay to strangers (well – and Farah, and Todd, and anyone who gets to know him for more than five minutes), but it’s like Todd said to Farah. He’s never actually known Dirk to even show interest in anybody at all. Todd’s never been … super _into_ the LGBT+ community, despite being bisexual himself. He always preferred the punk scene. But he’s heard of a few labels thrown around – asexual, aromantic, camp-but-not-gay, gay-but-not-camp, nonbinary, and something called “futch,” which Lydia had once texted to Farah with no context. The problem is that while Todd’s vaguely heard of those things, he doesn’t actually understand how they work. Let alone if Dirk is one of them.

Which is why he’s lying flat on his back, awake at three AM, neck straining so that he can stare at Dirk’s back on the other side of the bed, wishing he did understand.

“I can feel you staring,” Dirk mumbles.

Todd jumps. “I wasn’t –”

“And I should inform you, madam, that the monkeys are on their way.”

Oh, Jesus. Dirk’s having one of his weird-ass dreams. Maybe because he’s feeling a little pissed off that Dirk just gave him a heart attack, Todd shoves Dirk with his elbow. This only serves to make Dirk roll over and blearily open his eyes, making a sound which might be _whazzumonkey?_

“You were having a dream,” Todd mutters, sulkily. “Just go back to sleep.”

“Nooo …” Dirk trails off, and for a second Todd thinks he’s been successful and Dirk has fallen back to sleep, but then Dirk starts up again. “Got a hunch. Feeling. Thing.”

“About a case?”

“No … something t’ do with you.”

Shit. “It’s probably nothing Dirk, I’m fine.”

“Too late,” Dirk says, stretching with an audible crack in his back and a groan. “I’m awake now.”

The sleepiness in his voice belies that statement, but Todd just rolls over to face him with a sigh. “Okay, fine. What’ve you got?”

Dirk rubs at his eyes. “Erm – hang on, it’ll come to me in just a minute.”

“Mhmm. Sure.” Todd can’t help but smile a little bit at that, feeling his face relax out of the frown he’s been wearing all night.

Dirk throws his hands down at his sides. “Aww, nuts. It’s gone.”

“I could’ve told you that was gonna happen. It was just some weird dream, Dirk.”

“No, no, it was definitely _something._ ” Dirk rolls onto his side, so that they’re facing each other like brackets. He pulls his knees up until they’re pressing into Todd’s stomach, seeking out warmth.

Todd focuses on keeping his breathing steady. “Feel free to enlighten me.”

“Well – there’s the fact that you’re awake at –” Dirk twists his neck to look at the clock on the bedside table. “– Good lord, is that the time?”

“I could’ve stayed up playing around on my phone,” Todd suggests.

“No, I would’ve felt you typing.”

“You can feel me typing?”

“Yes, Todd, I do in fact know that you write down everything I say in my sleep.” The words are accusatory, but there’s a teasing edge to them.

“I don’t – write down _everything_ ,” Todd protests. “Just the really weird shit. Farah thinks it’s funny.”

“I’m just going to ignore the fact that my two best friends and coworkers make fun of me behind my back,” Dirk says, attempting to look dignified but stopping somewhere short of prissy, “and get to the point. You’re awake in the middle of the night, and you’re not on your phone, and unless you’ve gotten _really_ good at hiding the fact that you’re in severe physical pain, you’re not having an attack. Wait, you’re not, are you?”

“No. I’m not.” Todd rolls his eyes.

“Oh, well, good. I’d feel really stupid if you were.”

“Well I’m –” Todd gets the distinct sensation that he’s repeating himself now. “– _not_. So go on.”

“That’s as far as I got, to be honest,” Dirk admits, scratching his nose and making a very weird face while doing so. “I was kinda hoping you’d just be honest next.”

Todd narrows his eyes. “Okay, you are not genuinely trying to guilt trip me into talking to you right now.”

Dirk shrugs with a very innocent expression. “Well, I’m just saying, I would _hope_ that I could rely on my _best friend_ to tell me the truth when he’s feeling upset about something, but …”

“Oh my god.”

“… Maybe I’m just hoping for a dream that will never be realised.”

Todd shakes his head in disbelief. “You have a real knack for convincing people you’re all innocent, you know that? But you can be a real asshole when you want to be.”

Dirk presses a hand to his chest, as if to say, _me? Never_. Todd pretends it’s not fucking adorable.

And then he groans, because of course Dirk’s gonna get it out of him sooner or later. Maybe not _everything_ , per se, but – enough of what’s been on his mind to hide the … other thing.

“Look,” Todd begins, “I’ve just – been thinking lately. And I realised I may have … made some assumptions about … you. Because of all the …” Todd struggles to come up with a way of saying it that doesn’t sound incredibly offensive. “Jackets? And … you’ve never shown interest in anyone, but I didn’t want to …”

Dirk unfortunately just looks completely and utterly baffled as Todd continues to ramble.

Todd decides to bite the bullet.

“Are you gay?”

Dirk opens his mouth, closes it, and then makes a face like he’s experiencing indigestion, all in quick succession. “It’s – yes? No. Maybe? Sort of. Yes, definitely sort of.”

“That – Dirk, _what_?”

Dirk sighs. He looks, to Todd’s surprise, unhappy. “I am – gay. But also other things, complicated things, and those things tend to be the sort of things that are commonly compared to spanners and globular artefacts thrown into the complex machinery of identity and belonging.”

Todd readjusts his position, feeling his arm falling asleep. He pulls it up to prop up his head. “Do you … wanna talk about it?”

Dirk’s mouth has become distinctly small and worried-looking. It’s an expression that Todd’s become familiar with, over time. And what he’s learned is that it tends to indicate that Dirk’s feeling frightened, and really wants someone to comfort him, but isn’t willing to ask for it.

But isn’t Dirk here in Todd’s bed because Todd wanted to take care of him?

“We don’t have to talk about it,” Todd says, softly. “Just – you’re – you’re my best friend. I wanna know you, man.” Yeah, because tacking _man_ on the end is definitely gonna make what Todd said sound _so_ platonic.

But Dirk, thankfully, doesn’t seem to pick up on the implication – Todd’s grateful that Dirk’s ability to bluster right past implication is working for him, for once.

“Well, it’s just a matter of …” Dirk trails off. He turns in the bed to lie on his back, looking troubled. “For – most of my life, I was under the impression that I was one thing, and that thing, when it came to relationships … rather narrowed the pool, so to speak. And I was frankly quite happy to continue being that thing, because of all the – Universe stuff being kind of a dampener on relationships anyway. But lately – or not, erm, no it wasn’t – recent – sort of, just, comparatively speaking –”

“Hey, it’s all right, okay?” Todd interrupts gently, trying to stop Dirk from spiralling. “Just – keep going.”

“Right, yes. I … for a long time I just sort of considered myself to be asexual.”

Oh, shit. That’s one of the ones Todd doesn’t really know anything about. “So you … you never had a crush on anybody, or …?”

Dirk shakes his head. “No – that would be aromantic. I did a lot of research when I was younger about it. I had crushes on – people, pretty much all of the male persuasion, which is where the – gay thing came into play. But I didn’t – I never wanted –”

It dawns on Todd. “… Sex? You never … you never felt like, uh – _that_ around someone?”

Dirk shakes his head, and it’s a tiny, quietly embarrassed movement. “No. And that’s – I was always fine with that? I _am_ fine with that, because there’s nothing wrong with me, and I’m not – _sick_ , or _ill_ , if that’s what you’re going to suggest.” He sounds defensive, as if he’s preparing for the worst.

Todd’s heart almost breaks for him. “I wasn’t – Dirk, I would never.”

“Most people seem to think of it that way.”

Todd, almost subconsciously, moves in closer to Dirk’s warmth. “Well, I – I don’t. I’m not – Dirk, I’m not gonna lie, I’m not really the best person to … know about this kinda stuff, but like. I mean, I’m … bisexual. So. I know _some_ stuff.” As always, Todd’s voice sticks on the word _bisexual_. As always, revealing that he has any feelings at all regarding the attractiveness of literally anybody feels like admitting to some deeply personal secret.

Dirk’s eyes widen. “You’re …?”

“… Did I not … tell you that?” Todd’s sure that he implied it at some point. He must have. Right?

“No! No, you most certainly did not! Todd, that’s _fantastic_!”

“It – is?” Todd’s struggling to think of why it would be so good for him to be bisexual, but is coming up blank. “Why?”

Dirk pauses for a second, mouth opening and closing like a fish. “Oh, no reason, it’s not – it – erm … Because, you know, between me and Farah and now you, it’s – you know, we’re a very LGBT-friendly agency?” Dirk’s voice squeaks on the last word.

Todd squints at Dirk for a second, before deciding that he doesn’t wanna know. “Okay, well just – that’s not important, we were talking about you.”

“Ugh.” Dirk makes an annoyed face. “Your sexuality is _much_ more interesting.”

Todd glares at him. “So you’re … asexual. And gay.”

Dirk immediately sobers. “I mean … sort of, kind of. Not sure anymore?”

“Anymore?”

“It … Things – There have been – changes, of a very specific nature, which have made me reconsider …” Dirk pauses. Then he looks very hard at Todd for a moment, before rolling over to face him again.

There’s something in his expression that Todd can’t quite pin down, but if he had to put a label on it – he’d call it steely, pin-pointed determination.

“I’ve been considering a new label,” Dirk says. “In addition to gay. Demisexual.”

Todd … has never heard that word before in his life. “I’ve never heard of that,” he admits.

This doesn’t seem to phase Dirk. “Yes, well, it’s one of the lesser known variants of orientation and in fact I’m given to understand that there are many who’d say it doesn’t really exist. But then, I’ve been told that a lot of things don’t exist right before encountering them with sudden and violent immediacy, so …”

“Okay,” Todd says, carefully. “I still don’t …”

“It’s – still on the spectrum of asexuality,” Dirk explains hastily. “Very much so, in fact. But where an asexual might feel little to no sexual attraction at all, a demisexual individual _can_ in fact experience sexual attraction – but only under very specific and highly unique circumstances.”

Todd lets his head down onto the pillow, pulling his arm against his chest, as if to soothe the sudden ache that’s started up there. “Such as?”

Here Dirk begins to look nervous again. “Such as – in the case of the individual becoming closely emotionally linked to another person. By which I mean – falling in love with someone, yes, but also experiencing … a certain level of intimacy and connection, long before developing feelings of a sexual nature.”

Todd digests the words. _A certain level of intimacy and connection_. But Dirk hasn’t exactly been dating anyone that Todd knows of, so how …?

“So is this like … You’re just, _hypothetically_ , considering a change in labels … ’cause you feel like that might be … a thing for you one day? Like, under the right circumstances?”

Dirk’s eyes shift back and forth for a few seconds before he answers. “… Yes.”

“Oh. Well, I – I support you all the way, like …” Todd swallows. “Okay, I’m kinda confused though, because like – how would you know?”

The resolve from before returns to Dirk’s eyes. Dirk’s hand, which he’s been keeping against his chest in a mirror of Todd’s pose, moves to lie on the mattress in the narrow space between them. “I … haven’t had very many, erm, _crushes_ , in my life, but … Whenever I did have them, generally the strongest indications of romance I was beholden to were the very strong urge to hold their hand and the increasing inability to shut up around them.”

Todd doesn’t say anything, holding his breath. For some reason he’s getting the sense that Dirk’s trying to say something very, very important.

“But – there have been … times … When I’ve wanted … other things. I’ve … thought about kissing in the past, and even – things which could very well be termed _heavy petting_.”

Dirk may be talking like a grandmother who stashes Mills and Boon novels behind the sofa, but that doesn’t seem to matter to Todd’s body. Immediately, images flood his flood his mind – Dirk, and kissing – making out, maybe? Oh, god, Dirk making out – and hands wandering, finding their way to warm skin, and _Dirk_ , and pulses racing, and –

“Er, and so, I thought about – those things … And I realised that perhaps they weren’t quite as … boring as I’d previously assumed, so maybe it might be time to … reconsider the whole endeavour.”

Todd swallows roughly past the sudden longing that’s erupted into his throat. _He didn’t mean with you, asshole_. “Oh, well, you know, that – that makes sense.”

“Yes,” Dirk says slowly. “It … does?”

Todd nods, feeling his face do something weird and pained in an attempt to form some kind of _understanding best friend_ expression. “But, no, yeah, that’s – I was just wondering about that, and now you’ve – answered that question so – anyway, we should probably get some sleep.”

“Oh.” Dirk’s voice sounds oddly flat. “Yes. Of course.”

Todd rolls away, feeling his heart beat like a drum beneath his skin. He hopes Dirk can’t feel it.

“Good night, Dirk,” Todd says, softly.

There’s a pause.

“Good night, Todd,” Dirk says, and for some reason, it sounds so much further away than usual.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning description: It's only about a paragraph but you can stop at _"All of this is further complicated by the fact that Todd has"_ and begin again at _"The café itself is actually pretty nice."_
> 
> Writing about Farah and Todd accusing each other of being in love with their weird friends was basically just, like, the pointing spidermen meme. They are too messy for each other. Farah's Jane Austen divergence is a reference to a scene from Sense and Sensibility, which Todd has accidentally quoted. Marianne Dashwood asks her sister what she thinks of Edward Farrers. The sister, Elinor, is incredibly in love with Edward but sort of just stammers out "I do not attempt to deny that I think ... very highly of him. I ... greatly esteem him. I like him." I headcanon Farah as a secret Jane Austen nerd.
> 
> I am not ace or demi but my partner is and, as always, she helped me edit this chapter and ensure that Dirk's feelings about his sexuality were relatively accurate and unique to him. Todd may not fully understand what Dirk's about but he's trying. Well. I mean. That's an understatement. Dirk just practically confessed to romantic and sexual feelings for him and Todd's still not with it. Todd god_i_wish_that_were_me.jpeg Brotzman.
> 
> Anyway, as always, if you enjoyed PLEASE comment, I absolutely thrive on your feedback :)


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had to split the final chapter in two skjdghkdjskj my bad guys.

Sometimes, Todd almost forgets how this whole situation started out – as a way to help Dirk with his nightmares. The rate of Dirk’s nightmares has gone down considerably since he started sharing Todd’s bed, so it’s not exactly something Todd has to think about all the time. Plus, Todd’s usually too busy worrying about coming off as a creep to give too much consideration to Dirk’s motivations – he said it helped with the nightmares, so that’s that. But then Todd wakes up to the sound of Dirk crying – in a muffled, quiet voice, as if Dirk is ashamed, or worse, _afraid_ to be heard – and that most definitely reminds Todd of why they’re doing this.

“Dirk?” Todd squeezes his eyes shut and desperately tries to rub the sleep from them. “Hey, hey – it’s okay, just give me a second.”

Dirk doesn’t respond. Shit. This must have been a really bad one. Todd rubs at his eyes some more and clears his throat, willing himself to wake up faster. Then he turns on his side, only to find Dirk curled tightly in a ball on the other side of the bed. Todd carefully places a hand on Dirk’s shoulder, giving him time to move away if that’s what he needs. But Dirk stays where he is, so Todd runs his hand up and down in soothing motions, feeling the soft cotton of Dirk’s short sleeve give way to warm skin.

“Dirk? Do you wanna talk about it?”

No answer. Todd hesitates, but when it’s this bad – when it’s this bad there’s usually only one thing for it.

Todd pulls himself over to Dirk’s side of the bed, and presses himself along Dirk’s back, until they fit together like they were built for it. Dirk’s back pushes against Todd’s chest with every shaking breath he takes. Todd slips a hand around Dirk’s waist and pulls him in even closer, until there’s no separation at all and they’re breathing in tandem. Dirk’s shirt has ridden up in the middle of the night, so Todd’s hand meets bare skin, and he strokes his thumb across Dirk’s stomach without daring to think about it. Their hips meet, bracketing together. In another context (like after a certain kind of dream that Todd thanks god he’s only had once while Dirk’s been in his bed,) it might be arousing, but right now it just feels comforting – like the last light being switched off before bed, a soft _click_ that symbolises home.

They lie together like that for only a few minutes, but any prolonged contact with Dirk feels like a much longer time to Todd. Dirk’s quiet sniffling sounds become less frantic. Todd starts to feel himself slipping back into sleep, surrounded by the warmth and comfort of Dirk, safe in their bed.

“Are you – are you going to leave?”

The words snap Todd awake. “What?”

There’s silence again for a moment. “Sorry … Sorry, Todd, just go back to sleep.”

“Did you – are you asking if I’m going to leave the … the bed, or …?”

“No.” Dirk takes a deep, shuddering breath. “It’s nothing to worry about. Go back to sleep.”

Todd hauls himself up and leans on his arm so he can peer over Dirk’s shoulder. He can’t see much of Dirk’s face in the darkness, but even if he could, most of it’s turned into the pillow anyway.

“Dirk? Is this about the nightmare? Do you wanna talk about it?”

Dirk makes a weird strangled noise halfway between a laugh and a sob. “No – no, thank you, Todd, but I don’t think … I don’t think that will help this time.”

“Was it Blackwing stuff?”

Dirk sighs. “Not exactly.”

“Well, okay, was it … a flying purple people eater?” Todd tries weakly for a joke, but Dirk doesn’t laugh. That’s fair. The Cardenas house hasn’t really left either of them.

Todd hesitates before asking the question he really wants to know the answer to. “Was it … was it about me?”

He feels Dirk’s stomach tense under his hand.

“No.”

Dirk’s lying. Todd _knows_ Dirk’s lying.

… But if this isn’t something that Dirk’s willing to talk about, maybe he shouldn’t push it. Maybe he’s already been too pushy. Sure, they … cuddle sometimes after Dirk’s had a nightmare, but at least one of them is usually way more asleep than this. There’s mitigating circumstances, plausible deniability. Todd’s … probably really forcing himself on Dirk right now, when all Dirk must want is to just go back to sleep, like he said.

Todd draws back, his hand slipping away from Dirk’s skin, apologies at his lips.

“Don’t, please –” Dirk grabs Todd’s hand, and Todd stills.

Dirk freezes too, and his breathing quickens.

Todd senses a panic incoming. “It’s okay – Dirk, it’s fine, I’m not going anywhere. I’m sorry. I just thought you might wanna be left alone.” He puts his arm back where it was and lays his head down on the pillow, trying to avoid any of Dirk’s hair tickling his nose.

“I’m sorry,” Dirk repeats.

“Don’t worry about it,” Todd says, aiming for soothing, but probably ending up somewhere near concerned. He’s in way out of his depth right now. “Um, are you … is there anything I can do?”

“Don’t leave.”

The words send a pang through Todd’s heart. “I’m not going anywhere, Dirk, I promise.” He tightens his hold to prove it, and Dirk seems to relax.

And Todd thinks that’s the end of it – but there’s only a few moments of quiet, a few moments of Dirk’s steady heartbeat in his ear, before Dirk speaks again.

“In … when I was a kid, they never …” Dirk stops, choked up.

Todd waits. “It’s okay. Keep going.”

Dirk takes a breath. Todd feels Dirk’s shoulders tensing, and he presses Dirk’s waist as gently as he can, trying to keep him calm.

“When I was in Blackwing … we saw each other sometimes, me and the … other subjects. That’s how I knew the Boy – Francis, I mean.”

“Yeah, I remember,” Todd says. Dirk had done a lot of explaining on that front not long after the case in Bergsberg.

“Yes, well, as I said … we did see each other semi-regularly, generally under incomprehensible but probably experimental circumstances. I actually saw Bart the least of all of them, I think. Looking back on it now … I think the one time we were in a room together, she might have killed someone? I don’t know, I don’t remember a lot of …”

“That makes sense,” Todd nods, pressing his forehead into Dirk’s shoulder. “The – not remembering. It, y’know … trauma’s like that. I mean. I’ve heard.”

Dirk hums, a non-committal noise that might mean _yes, exactly,_ or just _I’d rather not talk about it using that word right now, Todd_. “It’s … What I’m trying to get at … the one thing they would never, ever allow is – was – for us to touch each other, in any way.”

Todd lets the words sink in. He thinks about a group of children – maybe teenagers too, and babies – growing up inside tiny cells with mirrors for walls, under ceilings full of glaring white lights. He thinks about children being allowed to play together, but – not. He remembers Amanda when she was a kid, climbing over everything and everyone and reaching out for affection at every turn. Something that had only stopped with her diagnosis. He thinks about what it might have been like to have never been allowed to reach out at all.

“So … touching is … a lot?”

Dirk nods. Todd can hear the rumble of it through the pillow next to his ear. “It’s not only – it’s partially because of the whole, asexual spectrum thing, but it’s – I think, mostly, it’s because of what happened when I was young. Touching is – as you put it, definitely a lot.”

Todd feels guilt lace through him as easily as breathing. “Is this … is what we’re doing, um – is it too much?”

“N-no. I don’t think so, it’s not … with you …” Dirk sounds uncertain.

“Are you sure?” Todd fights the urge to pull back again and give Dirk his space. The hand he’s got crushed up against his own chest twitches, and he flexes it, sliding it under the pillow beneath Dirk’s head before he fully realises what he’s doing.

Dirk seems to take that as some sort of invitation, because he rolls over to face Todd – and that’s how Todd finds himself with Dirk Gently in his arms, face just inches away.

It takes Todd back, absurdly, to the first time he woke up with Dirk in his bed, months ago. Dirk had looked so terrified – and he’d begun apologising as soon as Todd woke up, as if Todd was going to be angry with him for staying, for taking the comfort that Todd offered him.

That same fear is in Dirk’s face now. But there’s other feelings too – in the faint light of Todd’s digital clock, illuminating the shape of Dirk’s head like a halo, Todd can just make out the shape of Dirk’s eyes. Glinting within, he can see something like longing. Something like loneliness.

Todd very carefully – adeptly, after all these years – does not examine the instinct which makes him ask, “Do you … do you want me to touch you?”

Dirk’s eyes widen just the tiniest fraction, but he nods – a tiny movement, almost ashamed.

“Okay,” Todd says softly. “Come here.”

It takes a little manoeuvring, but less than might be expected, considering their relative positions, for Todd to pull Dirk into his chest, one arm wrapped around Dirk’s shoulder and curving down to his waist. The other he places, a little awkwardly, in Dirk’s hair. Dirk’s legs tangle together with Todd’s as he brings his knees up to dig into Todd’s stomach. Todd doesn’t dare complain though. They’re wrapped up so closely in each other that he doesn’t trust himself to speak anyway. He starts to run his fingers through Dirk’s hair, careful not to be too light – Dirk can be ticklish sometimes – or too heavy, because Dirk can be … oh, god, duh, Dirk can be weird about touch. And this is why. Blackwing is why.

Todd feels kinda dumb for not making the connection earlier.

But as Todd continues to stroke Dirk’s hair, pulling loose strands away from Dirk’s face, running his fingernails down Dirk’s scalp – Dirk relaxes. Bit by bit, Todd feels Dirk’s tense body melt into him, pressing them far closer together than Todd had thought possible. He’s starting to see now that actually, a slack, loose-limbed Dirk can entwine himself with Todd so much more – even if he is a little heavy. Todd doesn’t really mind.

He should. If he minded even a little bit, that would make him a normal person with boundaries and platonic feelings for his best friend, instead of a creep cuddling up to the guy he’s secretly in love with because the guy he’s secretly in love with is incredibly traumatised and doesn’t have anyone else to do it with.

Would Dirk do this with someone else?

It’s … something to consider. Todd has been telling himself for months that he just got lucky that his bedroom was closer than Farah’s the first time, and that much might be true, but … It’s really hard to picture Dirk doing this with Farah. It’s also incredibly painful, but that’s neither here nor there – Todd knows he’s being ridiculous because both Farah and Dirk are gay, so Jesus, what is he even jealous of? _Genuine_ platonic intimacy?

The point is that Dirk probably wouldn’t do this with Farah.

He … might do it with Hobbs? The guy is like a weird father figure who drops into people’s lives at random (and that thought sends Todd off on a tangent: are holistic parental figures a thing?) and that means that of course Dirk had latched onto him like a lost duckling.

… But there’s sharing someone’s bed entirely platonically because of nightmares and then there’s … this. There’s Dirk with his cold feet pushed between Todd’s calves. There’s Todd brushing his hand through Dirk’s hair. There’s Dirk, clutching at Todd’s shirt like a lifeline. And, _god_. There’s Dirk’s face pressed into Todd’s neck, his every breath warming Todd’s skin like sunlight.

All right. Dirk wouldn’t do this with someone else. But that still doesn’t mean Dirk’s doing it for the reasons Todd wishes he was. Todd wants to believe that Dirk wants to be close to him not because Dirk’s afraid, but just because he wants to be. Todd wants to believe that Dirk wants to be close to him in other ways, not just the kind of ways typically reserved for best friends who are secure in themselves and their sexualities (not that Todd’s ever been either). He wants to believe that Dirk wants to kiss him – even if all that they ever did was kiss – if all they ever did was chase each other to new heights and new discoveries using their lips alone. If Todd-from-college could hear Todd-from-right-now’s thoughts, he’d probably die of shock, but Todd feels a vicious stab of pride knowing that Todd-from-college is dead and gone.

Maybe Todd wants other things, and maybe he’ll never be able to stop wanting to believe that Dirk wants them too. But if all Todd can have is this – Dirk, in his arms, asleep, and at peace – then god, he’ll fucking take it. It’s already more than he deserves.

And there’s always a good explanation. If Todd’s learned one thing from knowing Dirk, it’s that the answer may be convoluted, insane, or even just plain weird, but there will be one. The Universe will make Todd understand why Dirk acts like this with him, and however painful the answer might be, at least it’ll be the truth.

 

~

 

“So Farah tells me Dirk’s in love with you,” says Amanda casually, and Todd nearly drops his phone.

Todd spends the next few seconds making a lot of spluttering noises and coming to the realisation that he now fully understands how Farah felt when he accused her of being in love with Tina. “No, he’s not,” he protests lamely.

It’s the first call from Amanda that he’s had in months. Their relationship is far and beyond what it was, since they finally managed to have their heart to heart in Wendimoor, but still, Amanda takes her newfound freedom with the Rowdies seriously. She doesn’t need a big brother hovering at her shoulder all the time – and she communicates mostly through heavily filtered snaps and incomprehensible memes nowadays.

All of that is to say that when Todd had picked up the phone thirty seconds ago, walking home with that week’s groceries through the park, that’s not what he thought he’d be greeted with.

Amanda makes a disbelieving noise. “Are you sure? Hasn’t he been sleeping with you for like, months?”

“Wh- that’s not – what the hell did Farah tell you?” And _why_. Farah’s not usually the kind of person to go around telling people’s dark secrets for no reason.

“She said you’ve been sleeping in the same bed for six months and the tension is so thick she’s going crazy. And she also said she’s gonna lock you two in your room until you sort your shit out, and, not for nothing, but I support her!” Amanda’s voice sounds perfectly cheerful, which is far and away from what Todd’s feeling right now.

“Why would – Farah would _never_ –”

“We-ell, she would if I threatened to tell Tina that she’s in love with her.” Amanda still doesn’t sound even remotely ashamed.

“… Okay, I’d ask how you figured that out, but I figured it out too, she’s not exactly subtle.” Todd spots a bench on the side of the path and starts heading towards it. He figures he’s going to need to sit down for this conversation.

“And neither are you by the sounds of it, dude.”

“Oh my god,” Todd says faintly, flopping down onto the bench and scrubbing a hand over his face. “You are the sneakiest, most under-handed, spoilt-youngest-child, little _shit_ , Amanda.”

“But am I wrong?” Amanda says thoughtfully. “Give me the deets! How are you sleeping together and not – you know, sleeping together? Like, don’t tell me that much ‘cause I don’t wanna know, but also, what the _fuck_ , dude.”

“It’s – complicated. Dirk’s – he’s not – no, okay, that’s not my place to … And honestly, you know, you don’t have any proof that I even – it’s complicated, Amanda!”

There’s a long and judgemental silence from the other end of the line. Todd fights the urge to fidget, then remembers Amanda can’t see him and gives in, tapping his foot on the pavement.

“Okay well if I had any doubts _before_ …”

“Oh, here we go –”

“I’m just saying if I was sleeping in the same bed as someone I liked –”

“That’s not something I wanna think about, and it’s not like that!”

“Well what is it like?!” Amanda sounds exasperated, but then she laughs.

Todd fights the urge to smile, still hardly daring to believe that they can have conversations like these again. He schools his face into a frown.

“It’s not a big deal. Dirk’s got, you know … trauma stuff. It just helps to have someone nearby when he’s asleep. It’s like, a carer thing, like … It’s basically just like the stuff I used to do for you.”

“Yeah, but we haven’t slept in the same bed since I was ten, so, it’s not the same thing at all.”

“I make tea for him,” Todd blurts out, as if that’s gonna explain anything. “I mean – I do stuff for him. I take care of him. I needed – after you left –” Shit. Shit shit shit. He’s digging himself in even deeper. This wasn’t a conversation he was prepared to have when he woke up this morning.

“… What do you mean you take care of him?” Amanda sounds a lot less gleeful and a lot more careful now.

Todd presses his free hand into his eyeball until he sees stars. He sighs. “After you left … Amanda, I know that … you probably think I did all the shit I did out of guilt, and – I guess you’re not entirely wrong, but it … Even when I hated myself so much I didn’t want to … to be around anymore, I still had you. I could get up in the morning for you. To take care of you.”

Amanda doesn’t say anything. Todd doesn’t expect her to. He can’t possibly expect to be comforted by her for his own mistakes. “And I just realised that maybe I … maybe I like taking care of someone, or … people. I was … kinda good at it, sometimes. So … I do that for him. It doesn’t actually mean anything.”

Amanda makes a thoughtful noise. Then – “Dude, that is so dumb.”

“Excuse me?”

“Like, yeah, okay, you took care of me – doesn’t make up for lying, but we’re not talking about that right now – but … you did do all of that because you love me, right?”

“… Right.”

“And you’re taking care of Dirk ‘cause you love him, but in a different way.”

“Yeah, in a _he’s-my-friend_ kind of way.”

“No, in a _you’re-in-love-with-him_ kind of way. And _don’t interrupt me_!” Amanda shouts as Todd goes to argue her point, and he clamps his mouth shut. “You’re making it sound like a really fucking one-way street, but I’m gonna bet money right now that it’s not.”

“The Rowdies don’t have money,” Todd scoffs.

“Tells you how sure I am, then.”

Todd … is going to argue the point, he _is_ , but then he remembers all the times that Dirk’s taken care of him after an attack. He remembers waking up on the floor with Dirk beside him, careful not to touch him too much just in case. He remembers Dirk sprinting up three flights of stairs the last time he’d been stupid enough to leave his meds in his room. He remembers Dirk’s hand pressed against his heart, warm and soft where the ice had been cold and unyielding.

“Look, he …” Todd stares into the middle distance. “Sure, okay. He takes care of me after attacks, sometimes, but that’s not the same thing.”

“So, you taking care of _me_ after _my_ attacks _wasn’t_ ’cause you love me?”

Todd narrows his eyes. “I hate arguing with you,” he grumbles.

“Nice try at changing the subject. I’m still winning this one.”

“You’re a terrible sister.”

“Well, you’re stupid,” Amanda says, and Todd can practically see her sticking her tongue out at him. “And you’re in love with Dirk and he’s in love with you, so go and like – bone him or whatever, but again, I’d like to stress this, don’t tell me about it.”

“There will be no boning,” Todd says flatly, “and I will not be telling you about the non-existent boning.”

“Thank god for that,” Amanda sighs with fake-relief. “Anyway. If you’re just gonna keep being in denial I guess that’s that. That’s really all I was calling about anyway. Any other news?”

They chat for a few more minutes about nothing in particular. Amanda fills him in on what she’s been up to with the Rowdies – turns out that her visions have been surprisingly useful in hunting down people who don’t deserve to be killed, but definitely deserve a good scare. The purpose in Amanda’s voice fills Todd’s heart with something like pride.

Towards the end of the conversation, Todd realises – not for the first time – how much Amanda’s grown. She’ll always be his baby sister. There’s an age gap between them that most siblings don’t have – Todd remembers her early years so vividly, he can still remember the exact pattern of clouds on the blanket she came home from the hospital wrapped in. But still. Amanda is entirely her own person now, and she doesn’t need Todd anymore. That’s a bittersweet thing.

It’s also reason enough for Todd to consider some advice Dirk gave him.

As the conversation begins to wind down, Todd tries to be brave.

“Hey, so … you can … if this is crossing a line or whatever, just tell me? But I – I need some advice, I think? About dealing with … with attacks.”

Amanda is silent for a long moment. For a second Todd worries he’s made her angry, and he’s about to start apologising, but when she speaks, her voice is small.

“I dunno if I’m the best person to ask,” she says. “I … before I met the Rowdies I kinda just … didn’t deal. You know what it was like.”

“I know.” Todd nervously clenches his fist in his lap, then forces himself to relax. “It’s just … you’ve dealt with this a lot longer than I have. Anything would help at this point.”

“I mean … you’re taking your meds regularly?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“And you’re avoiding stimuli?”

Todd recalls the number of occasions he’s found himself submerged in large bodies of nearly frozen water recently for a case. Twice is too many. “… Not really. Dirk, you know.”

“Yeah, nah, me too. The Rowdies.”

They both laugh. ‘Avoiding stimuli’ is toast with the way their lives are now. But they sober quickly, and Amanda keeps going.

“I guess the main thing that’s helped other than them is just … when I was on the run with Vogel, my attacks got a lot less frequent, because I was actually _trying_ to trigger them. I think it was some kind of desensitization thing? But I don’t really recommend that unless you really don’t have a choice ’cause like, literally the only reason I didn’t die was because Vogel was there.”

“… Yeah, that sounds like a no-go.”

“And the other thing was when I was in Wendimoor, and my attacks turned real. Which meant I could throw lightning and shit, which was cool. But then, it still really fucking hurt. Watki kind of helped me with that. She would tell me to picture it like it wasn’t part of me, and like … if it was a knife, take it out. If it was fire, put it out. If it was a bear trap, pry it apart. And it worked. I could do that.”

“Didn’t that stuff only work in Wendimoor, though?”

“Well, yeah. Sort of. But there’ve been times … not many, but there’ve been times when the Rowdies couldn’t get to me as quick. Sometimes I’ve needed my space and I’ve gone off on my own, and some of those times I’ve had an attack.” Amanda’s voice is pre-emptively defensive, which is fair, because Todd’s worry immediately spikes.

“Amanda …”

“Don’t you lecture me. You don’t even have _any_ Rowdies to help _you_ out. And you know what? It was fucking hard to come back from Wendimoor and have all the cool magic stuff just turn back into what it always was – a fucking disease. So yeah, sometimes I need some time alone, okay?”

“Okay,” Todd says. He swallows past a lump in his throat. Amanda still hates his sympathy. “Go on.”

“So … I basically, when I don’t really have any other choice, I try to do the stuff that worked in Wendimoor. And of course it doesn’t work here. I can’t conjure knives or stop myself from seeing and feeling the injuries. But if I concentrate on it, if I make myself think over and over again, take the knife out, put the fire out, swim to the surface, channel the electricity … it gets me through. Hurts like a bitch, and I still feel like shit afterwards, but it stops the panicking. And you know, it’s like grandma used to say …”

“‘It’s the panic that’ll kill you,’” Todd finishes for her. A typical bedtime story from their grandmother – a warning tale about all the Brotzmans before them that had died from pararibulitis because they couldn’t live with the attacks. Or at least that’s how Todd had always interpreted it at a child. Maybe it really is as simple as telling himself: _Don’t. Panic_.

“Thanks, Amanda,” he says softly. “That really helps.”

“’s fine.” Amanda clears her throat. She’s obviously uncomfortable with talking about the disease still. “Anyway, I gotta go. I think I can hear Cross and Gripps arguing.”

“Better go sort that out then.”

“Yeah. Smell ya later, loser.” It’s an old in-joke – Amanda quoting some ancient Disney Channel film in mockery of the way some Disney exec clearly thought siblings spoke to each other.

Todd rolls his eyes. “I’m not doing that.”

“Nah, go on, you totally are.”

“… Smell ya later.”

Amanda’s laughter is the last thing Todd hears before the call cuts out.

 

~

 

Todd’s gotten so used to living with pararibulitis that he’s almost forgotten what it’s like to be, well, normal sick.

He wakes up one morning towards the tail end of January, and his whole body aches. His head throbs with a dull pain, and a cough erupts out of his chest without warning, seizing his entire body. That seems to wake Dirk up – he groggily mutters something about a tissue. Todd waves him off, standing up to go use the bathroom. It’s as he’s washing his hands that he realises he may actually be _really_ sick – a cold sweat breaks out over his whole body, and nausea settles in his stomach with a sudden lurch. Todd realises, in the space of about five seconds, that he’s going to faint, and that he’s definitely risking a head injury if he does it in the bathroom. Pararibulitis attacks have honed Todd’s instincts for how to avoid that kind of thing by now, so he takes two lumbering steps towards the door, opens it, and falls face first onto the carpet – head safe out of the way of the tiles, though his dignity has admittedly taken a severe bruising.

He wakes up probably only about thirty seconds later to Farah and Dirk leaning over him and babbling at one another about what to do. Turns out their combined energies aren’t very helpful in this kind of crisis.

Luckily Todd can still speak, so after a few minutes of explaining that _no, it’s not pararibulitis, yes, I’m sure,_ and then a few more minutes asking favours _– could someone raise my legs? And give me a ride to the doctor?_ they finally make their way to the closest medical centre. And about two hours after that, Todd comes home with a diagnosis of Influenza A and the total, fatal loss of his own dignity, having fainted again when the nurse took a blood sample.

Todd takes a three-minute shower to wash off the doctor’s office, downs some painkillers and water, crawls into bed, and falls asleep for a few hours. When he wakes up, the room feels … different. It takes him a second, but when he looks around it becomes clear that someone’s been cleaning. The few dishes scattered around the room have been cleared away, and Todd’s haphazard laundry pile is gone too. The blind is down, so it’s still fairly dark, but the room feels refreshed regardless. Todd stretches in the bed with a groan, feeling all his muscles aching. But he feels better. The fever seems to have gone down. Now he’s just … phlegm-y.

That’s not too much of a problem, though, because when he glances to his left, he can see that someone’s left a tissue box, a glass of water, his meds, and a packet of throat lozenges on his bedside table. _Farah_? She doesn’t usually enter Todd’s room unannounced, (especially since the whole sleeping with Dirk thing began), but Todd guesses that circumstances demanded it. Kinda weird to think she cleaned, though.

“Had a hunch you’d be awake by now.”

Todd jumps about a mile in the air and hits his skull on the headboard with a _crack_.

“Ow, shit,” he swears, instantly reaching up to feel for blood.

Dirk – because of course it was Dirk – pops up from the end of the bed like a startled rabbit. His eyes are wide and he looks panicked.

“Oh no – did I scare you? Stupid Dirk, always sneaking around bedrooms and giving people concussions!”

Dirk crawls up onto the bed like some kind of nervous cryptid, while Todd tries to process the fact that Dirk has apparently been stealthily hiding in his room while he slept. “What are you doing in here?”

“Had to keep an eye on you. Farah’s orders. Also she made me a list of things to do to make the room nicer since you’ll be spending so much time in here, and she got some things for you so I put them on the bedside table, and then I was just about to leave but I saw a really weird looking spider on the ground, and I know the chances of it being psychoactive are slim –”

“Radioactive.”

“Right, neuroactive – I knew the chances were slim but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to check, and then you were awake? And Todd, you’d really better let me look at that, it sounded like a nasty thump!” With that spiel over, Dirk puts a hand against Todd’s cheek, the other cradling the back of his head.

Todd forgets how to speak. “Huh?”

“Your head? I thought you knocked it?”

“Oh!” Okay, that was stupid. Jesus. “Yeah, um … go ahead.”

Dirk starts to say things at this point, a whole fuckton of things probably, because it’s Dirk. Todd hears none of them, because Dirk is pulling Todd into his chest, up and away from the pillow. Todd feels every tiny action as if it’s taking a thousand years – Dirk’s hand against his cheek moving to the back of his head, running fingers along every bump on Todd’s skull, searching for injury. The hand cradling the back of Todd’s neck is steady and strong, holding Todd pressed into Dirk’s chest, so that Todd is surrounded by the smell of Dirk, like honey, probably from that weird skincare bar thing that Dirk keeps in the shower. The warmth of Dirk’s skin envelops Todd like he’s coming home – he can feel it rising through his face. Although, actually, that could just be a blush, because 1) Todd’s an idiot for being driven almost to tears over someone cradling him like this and 2) Todd is extremely sick and probably super flushed and sweaty and gross and –

“Nope, all’s well! Thank goodness. Wouldn’t it have been awful if you managed to avoid a head injury in the bathroom only to get one in bed?” Dirk draws back a little so that Todd can see his face, but he doesn’t let go. Todd feels himself held up by Dirk and decides he won’t be examining how that makes him feel until everyone else is asleep and he can have feelings in private.

“Yeah,” Todd chokes out, “totally, um, Dirk – you can – let go now.”

“Oh! Sorry.” Dirk gently places Todd’s head back on the pillow. Strictly speaking Todd didn’t need that much help, but, well, here they are. It’s whatever.

“You probably shouldn’t get too close to me right now,” Todd says, with some difficulty. “You don’t want what I’ve got, trust me.”

“We-ell,” Dirk says, a mischievous look on his face, “I was going to tell you earlier – I actually got a free flu jab the other week! I was walking by this public medical centre and they were having all these free jabs and the one thing Blackwing was good for was vaccinations, but then I just got the strongest urge to go in so I assumed the Universe needed it for some reason, and hey presto! Dirk Gently’s holistic nursing services, at your disposal.”

“That’s … great, Dirk, but I’m super gross right now, I don’t know why you would wanna …” _See me like this. Be around me if I’m functionally useless to you_.

“No!” Dirk looks, of all things, excited. “Todd, don’t you see? You’ve been – making me tea, and breakfast, and assisting in various other ways, which I’m sure I don’t need to repeat to you here, so – it’s the Universe letting me pay some of that back!”

Todd squints at Dirk through gunk-filled eyes. The determination in Dirk’s eyes does not at all look like it’s fading. “Okay, but I sure hope you like phlegm.”

“I’ve been told I have a knack for getting into the stuff.”

“That’s horrifying.”

“And _rather_ helpful right now!”

God, nothing dampens Dirk’s spirits when he’s convinced himself he’s needed by his friends. Todd smiles.

“Well, if you’re looking for your first duty, how about a cup of coffee?”

“I can do that!” Dirk lights up immediately at having a job to do, in a way which reminds Todd faintly of an eager whippet.

… Which means Todd can’t resist the urge to tease Dirk just a little. “I dunno, Dirk, I’ve got pretty high standards for coffee. Are you sure you’re up for the task?”

Dirk levels an unimpressed look at Todd. “Todd, I’ve seen what you’re willing to digest in the name of caffeine. I think I’ll be fine.”

And Todd would have a retort to that, but it’s quickly taken over by a coughing fit, so Dirk gets the last word after all.

 

~

 

The next couple of days are weird. The reversal of their roles (or rather, the roles Todd had assigned them in his head, telling no one,) means that Dirk is the one getting up and making breakfast, fetching things and, as he puts it, “assisting.” Still, there are bound to be some disasters with Dirk in charge, as Dirk aptly proves over what should have been a simple after-dinner snack.

“All I’m saying is that maybe the cookie wouldn’t have melted if you called it by the right name,” Todd comments, as Dirk stares despairingly at the last few soggy crumbs in his tea strainer.

“It is a _biscuit_ ,” Dirk insists. “It is a biscuit for eating with tea. And it melted because you started coughing on me!”

“Are you – you’re really gonna blame me for having the flu? You’re gonna blame the guy who’s bedridden right now?” Todd raises his eyebrows, trying not to cough as he leans back in bed.

Dirk huffs and sets the mug on the table next to his side of the bed. “Well, I don’t know who _you’d_ suggest I blame.”

Todd splutters. “You! Because _you_ left the cookie on top of the mug! The steam melted it and then you spent the next five minutes scooping wet crumbs into your mouth looking like you were gonna start sobbing any second!”

“I did _not_ ,” Dirk huffs.

“You did, and I know, because the memory of it is about to make me sta-ar-ar–” Todd finally succumbs to the coughing fit that he’s been fighting off since he stopped laughing at Dirk’s stupid face as he ate the soggy cookie pieces.

Dirk watches on, still offended. “How can you laugh at me at a time like this?!”

Todd is alternating between laughter and coughing, to be fair. “ _Your fucking face_ ,” he chokes out, remembering how distraught Dirk had looked.

“ _Todd_! You are being – you are being _beastly_!” Dirk hugs a pillow to his chest defensively, but that just sets Todd off even further.

“ _Beastly_ ,” he wheezes. His ribs are starting to ache.

“It’s not that funny! _Todd_!”

Arguments like that become par for the course for the entire time Todd is sick. Farah pokes her head around the door once or twice, but Todd gets the feeling that she’s kinda terrified of getting sick, so he’s not too offended that she doesn’t show her face much. Dirk’s plenty of company anyway. Almost too much.

If Todd had thought that having Dirk in his bed every night was a lot to handle, then having him in bed all day and night is enough to make him feel like he’ll never escape his own feelings. Sure, Todd is absolutely revolting right now – sweaty no matter how frequently he showers, and snotty, and weak as a kitten – but Dirk … _honestly_ doesn’t seem to care. He still moves in close to Todd in the middle of the night, still laughs at all Todd’s lamest jokes – and they are really lame jokes, because Todd can’t deliver a joke with anything less than a deadpan expression – and he treats Todd with all of the same affection he always has.

On the third morning after Todd got sick, it finally occurs to Todd that maybe he should try to check in on Dirk for real. After all, Dirk’s been doing so much for him … Todd needs to return the favour, somehow.

“Are you sure you’re okay with all of this?” he asks, sitting on the floor in front of the bed. Dirk is making a valiant attempt at changing the sheets. “Like, taking care of me?”

“Yes?” Dirk frowns with concentration as he wrestles with a pillowslip. Then he seems to realise what Todd just asked, because he glances down at Todd in alarm. “I – I mean, if you are, I know I’m not … very good at it …”

Todd shakes his head. “No – no, you are. You’re really good at taking care of me, I just, I thought – I thought you liked it when I took care of you, or whatever.” _Or whatever_. Todd hates everything about everything he says sometimes.

“I do like it.” Dirk confesses this as if it’s an awful secret. He doesn’t look at Todd, fidgeting with the pillowslip as he continues to speak, words speeding up as he goes. “I … I like it so much, I don’t think you – No one’s ever – erm, I mean. It’s … You’re a really wonderful – assistant, Todd.”

Todd looks down at the carpet, pulling at a loose thread. “Me taking care of you isn’t about being your assistant,” he says, steadily.

“Yes … yes, I know. It’s because you – you’re my friend.” Dirk sounds inordinately proud of this fact.

Todd shouldn’t want to take that away from him. Even if what Todd wants is what some people would probably define as just another kind of friendship – even if it comes with more avenues of affection, more opportunities to show how much he loves Dirk – Dirk’s only ever wanted a best friend.

“Yeah,” Todd says. It’s all he can say.

Dirk sighs, standing up to do the other pillow. “You’re so good at it, though. All the – taking care of people stuff, that comes so easily to you.”

“No – no, it doesn’t,” Todd almost laughs. “Dirk, I’m not like – Mother Theresa. I’m not a good person.”

Dirk looks down at him again, aghast. “Todd …”

No, no, nope. Not gonna hear whatever bullshit Dirk’s come up with to try to turn all of Todd’s flaws into good things again. Did that once. Ruined his sister’s life a day later.

“No, listen – I’m not,” Todd protests. “And I really don’t – want to have that whole conversation again. I just mean – I, sure, I wanna take care of people. I always did. I took care of Amanda ’cause I love her, and I – I care about you, so of course I wanna take care of you, but it’s just … it’s just a surface thing.”

Todd takes a deep breath, and carefully doesn’t look up. It’s old territory they’re on now, but it still feels like so much to admit to. “I felt like a small person for so long and I treated people like they were small too, and that was obviously shitty, we’ve talked about it. But now that I’ve got – friends, and people who want to be in my life … I have to make up for it.” He forces himself to look at Dirk’s face, confused and upset as it is. “I have to make up for the fact that it’s _me_ they’re friends with.”

Dirk stares at Todd for approximately five seconds before dropping the pillow, falling to his knees, and crawling over to Todd with the most painfully earnest expression on his face that Todd might have ever seen.

And what comes out of his mouth is even worse.

“Todd – no, no, that’s not … You’ve taught me so much about friendship and how to care for a friend, and how to _be_ a friend,” Dirk gesticulates wildly, as if he can convey what he’s trying to say through a form of sign language spoken only by esoteric aliens. “How can you possibly think you’re anything less? How can you _possibly_ imagine you’re not the best friend I’ve ever had? And it’s not just because of what you can do for me – it’s because of who you are, Todd, it’s _you_.”

_Okay, well, that’s obviously just crazy_. But before Todd can refute that point, Dirk keeps talking.

“It’s your music, and your sense of humour – I know you make fun of me sometimes when you think I won’t notice, but I actually think it’s rather endearing because you can be so dry, and that really is quite difficult to pull off, but you manage it effortlessly – and your steadiness, and I never – I never feel lost around you, I feel – like the stream is going exactly where it’s supposed to go and I’ve got my own little twig entangled up with my leaf self, and this metaphor’s getting off track, but … My point is that it’s _you_ , _you’re_ the reason you’re a good friend. You’re not just what you can do for other people, Todd.”

The words – the right words, words to respond to such a statement – stick in Todd’s throat.

“Um,” he says, eloquently. “Thanks … man.”

He wants to sink through the floor and never be seen again.

“You’re quite welcome, Todd,” Dirk says, and his tone is chipper – he goes right back to wrestling with the sheets – but still, Todd can sense when Dirk’s giving him an out.

Besides, when Todd finally does get into the bed later on, it’s to the amusing discovery that every single sheet and pillowslip is somehow on inside out. Dirk swears when he realises. Todd just laughs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, my bad about the chapter count. Will post the last one within the week. Let me know what you thought!!!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Forgot to say in the last chapter's endnotes, I've been listening to a lot of The Magnus Archives so I couldn't resist a blink-and-you'll-miss-it crossover!

Todd manages to recover from his flu in about a week, although the tickle in his chest lingers for a couple of weeks after that. In all that time, nothing exciting happens – they don’t have a single case. It makes Farah antsy – having nothing to do gives her anxiety. She explained once that at least if she was in mortal peril, she didn’t have to worry because she had something to do. Dirk, of course, is absolutely crawling up the walls with a need to get something done, and all of that makes Todd feel just a bit guilty, because he’s internalised the vague idea that maybe the Universe is giving them a break because Todd’s sick.

And of course the second he realises he hasn’t coughed in twenty-four hours, a case begins. It involves a lost, yet priceless glass eye; a sadly deceased fish; and an irritable English man who claims to work in a very important archival role in his native country, whom Todd realises in many way is the exact inverse of Dirk. Neither Dirk nor the man seem to be aware of this, but Farah notices it too if her side-glances are anything to go by.

It all amounts to not much, though, because the case is solved, the fish is returned to its ancestral homeland, and the eye is shattered once and for all. They return home several days later exhausted and elated, and Todd doesn’t think twice when he pulls Dirk by the hand into their bed, curling around him without a second thought. They sleep, and don’t dream, and when Todd wakes up, he goes to make Dirk’s tea without a second thought.

Thing is, though, Dirk drinks a shitton of tea while he’s on a case, at least when they’re not being actively chased. So the cupboard is empty, necessitating a trip to the grocery store to get more. Todd foregoes breakfast – he’ll probably just eat breakfast with Dirk at home. The grocery store trip nearly sends him over the edge of despair when he makes his way to the tea and coffee isle, though, because staring at the endless shelves of tea, it feels like he’ll never figure out Dirk’s favourite.

And he knows now, too, why it matters so much. If he can figure out … No, if he can know what Dirk likes, better than anyone else, then maybe …

Todd realises he’s zoning out and shakes off the stupid, gooey, hopeful feeling that’s creeping over him. He grabs the first box of tea he sees – Twining’s Chamomile and Spiced Apple – and walks determinedly away. It’s a stupid tea. It’s pretty much the cheapest tea that you can get that’s still drinkable, at least according to Dirk and most of the tea snobbery side of the internet. Todd still can’t taste the difference, but whatever. Dirk can deal with middle of the line, downmarket tea for one day.

At home, his stomach starts grumbling pretty much as soon as he throws together some pancakes in a pan and sets the kettle on to boil. The pancakes are just a box mix with some chocolate chips mixed in, but whatever, they’ve definitely earned a cooked breakfast. Farah’s having one of her extremely rare sleep-ins, by the looks of it, since she’s still nowhere to be seen. Good. Todd finds himself worrying about her sleep schedule sometimes.

About ten minutes later finds him wandering back into his bedroom, having stopped to slip some pyjama pants on (like hell he’s getting out of the apartment again today,) and opening the door to find Dirk sitting up in bed, pleased as punch.

Todd narrows his eyes. “You fucking knew I’d make breakfast for us, didn’t you.”

“I think I’ve explained many times, Todd, it’s rarely as simple as _knowing_ , it’s a complex series of hunches and hints from the Universe as to the current needs of the –”

“Oh my god, shut up,” Todd grumbles. He sets down the breakfast tray on the bed, handing Dirk his tea and pancakes without a second thought.

Climbing into bed, the only thing on his mind is how hungry he is, so he starts shovelling in the pancakes as fast as he can without being gross and dropping crumbs all over the sheets. Dirk keeps up a steady stream of chatter between bites, talking about the extremely weird dream he had, which Todd keeps accidentally tuning out of.

But a few minutes later, Dirk goes completely still. Todd glances up from checking the weather on his phone to see Dirk staring at the mug of tea in his hands with an inexplicable expression.

“… Dirk?” Todd begins to feel alarmed as the silence stretches on.

“Twining’s Chamomile and Spiced Apple,” Dirk whispers.

Still his expression doesn’t change, and Todd has no idea what that means. He looks at the mug, which is steaming lightly in the cool morning air. Dirk’s hands grip it tightly, like he’s desperately seeking out its warmth.

“That’s – Did this particular tea try to kill you one time, or …?”

“No,” Dirk says, and his voice is doing weird enough things to match his face now. “No, Todd … This is it.”

Todd stares. Something’s not clicking. “ _It_ being …?”

“My favorite,” Dirk says, and suddenly, Todd understands – the expression on Dirk’s face, the tone of his voice – it’s, of all things, _wonder_.

Something deep inside Todd’s chest begins to glow.

“This – this is it?” Todd sets his plate at the end of the bed and scoots over to Dirk, heart pounding for some inexplicable reason. “ _This_ is the tea?”

Dirk nods enthusiastically. “Yes, it – oh, _ouch_!”

“What? What is it?” Todd panics for a second, trying to figure out what’s hurt Dirk. Dirk turns away and almost drops the mug onto the bedside table, instantly pulling his hands up to his face and blowing on them. Todd suddenly realises that Dirk must have been holding the hot cup for so long that he’d burned his hands.

“Here, let me –” Todd grabs Dirk’s wrists carefully, pulling them into his lap. He cradles the back of Dirk’s hands, feeling the bony knuckles on his palms. He peers closely at Dirk’s fingers, but there’s no signs of serious burns, only a little redness, and that might be from the cool morning air.

Todd is about to let go of Dirk’s hands and pronounce him _just fine, you big baby_ , when he notices that Dirk has gone, yet again, very still.

Todd pauses as well, unwilling to look up. Had he … has he done something wrong? Has he been too obvious, too open? The longer Dirk’s hands sit palm-up in his, the delicate skin at the back of his hands stupidly soft against Todd’s fingers, the more Todd knows that he’s being _weird_ , he’s being – too much. But he still can’t bring himself to just _look up_ and see Dirk’s face, see whatever expression that might be there, pitying him, mocking him with its kindness.

Or maybe not.

Maybe if Todd were to look up, he’d see … affection. A gentleness in Dirk’s eyes, even … adoration. It’s not like Dirk’s never looked at Todd in that way. It’s just that those expressions have always been, however loving, platonic in nature. Todd doesn’t want to see _those_ expressions. He’s afraid of Dirk looking at him like that _again_. He wants Dirk to look at him like Todd is worth every part of affection, every tiny sacrifice made in the name of loving.

Todd can’t let go of Dirk’s hands, resting in his, as trusting as … as Dirk has always been, when it comes to Todd. Never for a single second doubting in him, no matter how much Todd deserves doubt, and suspicion, and mistrust.

Todd looks at the lines of Dirk’s palms, the criss-crossed records of Dirk’s body, his history, his life – and Todd does something that is both a little brave and a little cowardly.

He leans down, bending over his own crossed legs, and kisses Dirk’s palm.

There is a sound, like a soft intake of breath, above Todd’s head.

“All better,” Todd murmurs, as if this is something he can salvage. It isn’t. He can’t come back from this, he can’t pretend. Can’t lie.

He forces himself to sit up.

And then – Dirk’s face. It’s almost the same expression he had just moments ago, when he realised that Todd had finally, miraculously discovered his favorite tea. _Wonder_.

Todd has learned many things about the Universe in his time with Dirk Gently. Above all, he’s learned that everything – meaning _everything_ – is connected. So it is when Dirk leans in towards Todd, something terrifyingly vulnerable in his eyes, that Todd understands all at once – it always had to happen this way. He had to stop guessing and researching and agonising, so that he could pick the first tea on the shelf that called out to him. And right now, he has to stop overthinking and doubting and wanting, and let Dirk kiss him –

And Dirk does.

It’s a kiss that’s as much _Dirk_ kissing _Todd_ as it is an inevitable falling together, a shared question by two people who are very scared and somehow simultaneously brimming with joy. Dirk is hesitant, which might be due to his lack of experience, and Todd finds himself pressing in closer. The kiss is chaste, all closed mouths and the soft brushing of lips – but then Dirk makes a sound like a sigh, and it changes. Todd finally lets go of Dirk’s hands and settles his own around Dirk’s cheek and the nape of his neck, pulling him in. Dirk, seeming to finally remember the rest of his body, surges forward, pushing himself into Todd’s arms. Todd smiles into the kiss, unable to help himself, but something seems to have awoken in Dirk – he brushes his tongue against Todd’s mouth, and Todd immediately reciprocates. He bites Dirk’s lip – just a little – and the sound that Dirk makes can only be described as a quiet moan. At that, Todd kisses Dirk chastely once more, before pulling back entirely and daring to open his eyes.

Dirk’s eyes are still closed, like he can’t quite believe what just happened. For a second Todd almost panics, but then –

“Were you just waiting for the tea to finally kiss me?” Dirk looks dazed, and not a little confused as well.

The question takes Todd completely by surprise. “What?”

Dirk flushes a very bright shade of pink. “Well, I was – trying to give you all sorts of hints, and you weren’t responding, and I thought – I thought you just, didn’t feel anything like that, and it was fine, _obviously_ , you’ve already done so much for me and I really didn’t want to make you uncomfortable so I dropped it, but –”

“Wait, _hints_? What hints?” Todd has never felt this baffled post-kissing before.

Dirk huffs. “I mean, I thought I was pretty obvious, Todd. I told you about – being, you know, demisexual and how I’d come to that conclusion, and –”

“You – you never said any of those fantasies were about _me_!”

Dirk throws up his hands. “Who _else_ would they _possibly_ have been about? Did the emotional-closeness-leading-to-newfound-feelings-of-a-sensual-and-possibly-even-sexual-nature definition _totally escape your notice_?”

“No! But you – you could have meant … um …” Todd stumbles, trying to think of a single person who might have inspired Dirk’s reconsideration of his identity, and realises there isn’t anyone as close to Dirk as he is. Best friend or not. “Look, you just – I never thought that you’d …”

Dirk looks stricken all of a sudden. “Oh, did you – you don’t … feel the same way?”

Todd feels his eyes widening. “Oh, god, no, I – I do,” he blurts out. “I really, really do.”

“… And to be clear … that feeling is, er …” Dirk trails off, looking unsure.

And Todd decides to be just a little bit braver. “I … don’t know about you, but. For me … That would be,” he clears his throat, “completely fucking in love with you?”

“Oh,” Dirk says, with the quiet, joyful surprise of someone who’s been given an unexpected yet utterly perfect gift from someone they love very much. “That’s – I – I love you too.”

Todd realises he has absolutely nothing to say in return to that. Instead of talking, he does something he’s never done before – he pulls the person he’s in love with in close for a second kiss, and somehow, it’s even better than the first.

 

~

 

They tell Farah first, obviously. Or at least they try to – because she calls them half an hour later to explain that, contrary to her very nature, she’s taken an unplanned vacation. To Bergsberg. And more to the point, she and Tina are, in Farah’s own embarrassed words “a thing now, kind of?”

The vacation is less of a surprise than it should have been. Their most recent case had been one of the more harrowing ones. Nevertheless, the ‘Tina thing’ is _definitely_ a surprise, which is why Dirk spends the next fifteen seconds bouncing up and down on the spot, and even Todd can’t keep himself from smiling – though that may also partially be because of the fact that Dirk refuses to let go of his hand.

And maybe they should let Farah have this moment – but the choice is taken out of Todd’s hands when Dirk excitedly blurts out “Oh, this is fantastic! Todd just kissed me too!”

Todd doesn’t even try to correct him. He knows they kissed each other equally.

Farah makes a lot of surprised but happy noises, and the three of them (soon joined by Tina on the other end) somewhat awkwardly but nonetheless enthusiastically congratulate one another on romantic endeavours well done.

It takes a couple of days for Todd to get around to telling Amanda. After their last conversation, he’s not sure he’s earned back enough points for another heart to heart. Eventually, though, he makes himself call her. It … helps that Dirk gives him a very soft smile and kisses the life out of him immediately beforehand.

“Todd? Are you okay?” Amanda forgoes the pleasantries. No doubt because she thinks it must be an emergency, for Todd to call her again so soon after the last one.

“Yeah, no – we’re all fine. Nothing’s wrong,” he explains hastily.

“Oh,” Amanda pauses. “Uh, well – what’s up?”

Todd swallows. It feels weird to tell Amanda about this stuff. To tell her that he’s happy. He’s still not quite sure that he deserves to be, but never more than when he’s speaking to Amanda.

“So, um … it’s about Dirk?”

“… Ooh?” Amanda can’t disguise the excitement in her voice.

Todd thinks, _ugh_.

“I … we … We’re dating, now, kinda? Me and Dirk, I mean.”

Todd holds the phone away from his ear as an ear-splitting screech emanates down the line.

“WHAT! Dude! Oh my god! Fuck you, you owe me money!”

Todd can’t help but laugh a bit. “I never agreed to that bet.”

“I fucking told you! I told you he was in love with you!”

“Okay, okay, ’Manda, Jesus. It’s not like I never dated someone before.”

“Yeah, but this is the first time you’ve actually _told_ _me_ about it.”

That’s a sobering realisation. Todd never told Amanda about any of his high school crushes, she was too young for any of that kind of sharing. And by the time he was in college, and even afterwards … they weren’t close anymore. When Amanda was diagnosed … Todd didn’t have time for relationships anymore.

No wonder she’d latched on to his crush on Farah, all that time ago.

“Sorry,” Todd says, and then cringes. “Um, no, hang on. I – I know, no more apologies.”

They’d agreed on that. No more trying to apologise. It doesn’t help.

“But, uh. Just. I love you, okay?” Todd holds his breath. He used to tell Amanda he loved her all the time.

There’s a long silence on the other end. “… Love you too,” Amanda says, and it’s quiet, and hesitant, and all the things Amanda isn’t anymore.

He clears his throat. “Anyway, yeah. Just called to let you know. Dating Dirk now. It’s … good. Cool.”

“Fucking finally, too. But you’re not cool, just FYI.”

And after that, they settle into another conversation, lighter than before – lighter than they have been in a long time.

Time passes, and to Todd’s surprise, he doesn’t mess things up. Two weeks on, he wakes up, and Dirk is curled into his chest, and he realises that he isn’t aching anymore. More importantly, he isn’t ashamed.

Todd’s used to feeling ashamed of his relationships. There’s something deeply horrifying about being seen – having his most private feelings be so publicly acknowledged, no matter how politely, how positively. Todd’s policy has long been that no one needs to know what’s on his mind – or, if he’s being honest, what’s in his heart.

But he gets it now.

He wants to the tell the whole fucking world, the whole damn _Universe_ that he’s in love with Dirk Gently and Dirk Gently is in love with him. He wants to introduce Dirk as his boyfriend, and doesn’t care how teenager-y that sounds. He wants to take Dirk on dates and buy boxes and boxes of Dirk’s ridiculous favorite tea which _isn’t even that good a brand_ to fill their cupboards with. Most of all, he wants this to _last_. He doesn’t just want to tell the truth. He wants to celebrate it, forever, with Dirk.

And maybe this euphoria will pass. Maybe all his happiness will come to a screeching halt with his next attack. Maybe one or both of them will get hurt on a case. In fact, these things almost certainly will happen, there’s no _maybe_ about it.

But Todd understands now in a much deeper way than he ever did before – every second of it, with Dirk at his side, will be worth it.

 

~

 

Months later, they’re having breakfast in bed together.

It’s a terrible habit – the crumbs get into the bedsheets and make the room smell funky, and it drives Farah crazy even though it’s not her room or her bed, which Todd and Dirk both privately agree is ridiculous. They pointedly ignore the fact that she’s right.

It’s a habit that they don’t plan on breaking any time soon.

Todd waits until he can tell that Dirk’s starting to wake up before kissing his cheek and whispering in his ear, “Gonna make breakfast, okay?”

“Mmkay,” Dirk mumbles sleepily. “Love you.”

“Love you too,” Todd murmurs, even though he’s pretty sure that Dirk isn’t actually conscious.

He stumbles off to make breakfast, still pretty tired himself. They’ve just finished off another case, involving a skydiver who went missing mid-dive. They’d found him in the Himalayas with no clothes on, completely unharmed – unlike the three of them. All of that is to say that they’re all exhausted, and they’ve definitely earned a nice breakfast, which Todd has taken to making for them (Farah too, if she’s already awake).

Todd returns to the room about twenty minutes later with a trayful of two plates of eggs and toast, a mug of coffee, and a very fancy teacup containing Dirk’s tragically middle-of-the-road favorite tea. Twining’s Chamomile and Spiced _Fucking_ Apple.

(Todd still smiles when he sees the box at the store, but that’s the only time. He plays a very good poker face when Dirk tries to tease him about it.)

Dirk is still asleep, so Todd unceremoniously dumps their breakfast on the end of the bed and crawls back in between the sheets. He curls up close to Dirk and puts a hand on his hip.

“Hey. Wake up.”

Dirk frowns, refusing to open his eyes. “So cold and unfeeling,” he sighs, clearly hoping for a little more romancing.

Todd rolls his eyes. “Please, my love, awaken from your slumber,” he says, flatly.

Dirk frowns even harder. Todd relents.

“I made breakfast.”

Dirk opens his eyes and smiles. “Thank you,” he says sunnily.

Todd _hmms_ , a little annoyed. Dirk kisses him, though, and that mollifies him a little. Which is also annoying – or at least, he tells himself it is.

Since Dirk has discovered that he actually does like kissing _rather a lot_ , in his words, he’s taken to sneaking kisses from Todd at random, all the time. At first Todd had found it – honestly, a combination of surprising and delightful, wonderful and confusing. He keeps forgetting that they’re together now, that he can lean in and kiss Dirk whenever he wants to. He can take Dirk’s hand and lace their fingers together, put his hand on Dirk’s leg and feel Dirk’s whole body go still with happiness. Best of all, he can pull Dirk in close, feel the warmth of Dirk’s chest against his own, Dirk’s arms around him. Dirk isn’t that much taller than him, but he still has to stoop down just a tiny bit so Todd can rest his head on Dirk’s shoulder.

They eat their breakfast together this morning and watch the newest episode of _Buzzfeed Unsolved_ , which they’ve agreed to watch only during the daylight hours. Dirk provides a constant stream of snarky commentary, while Todd argues against all his points. At one point, things actually devolve into a sort of weird _poking-each-other-in-the-sides-until-someone-calls-for-mercy_ contest, which ends with someone’s fork fallen to the floor and Dirk practically shrieking with laughter while Todd can barely breathe for how happy he is.

They lie on their sides, facing one another, breakfast and laptop forgotten at the end of the bed. Dirk leans in and kisses Todd, and Todd feels himself smiling against Dirk’s lips. Dirk keeps breaking away to continue whatever it was that they were arguing about – but Todd kisses him again, and again, and again, until he’s pushing Dirk back into the pillows and their kisses grow heated, the promise of something more lingering in the air between them – not for the first time, either, though they’ve been taking things slow.

Todd pulls back and rests his forehead against Dirk’s, keeping his eyes shut. Dirk reaches his hand up to Todd’s hair, and begins to stroke it.

The feeling unfurling in Todd’s chest isn’t overwhelming. It isn’t so fierce and strong and heavy as it was before they allowed themselves this. It’s just … calm. A quiet, content glow of completely uncomplicated happiness. They are alive, and they are together, and there is something precious between them that _radiates_ joy.

They take care of one another, and it’s perfect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And it's done!!!! Please let me know what you thought - often when a fic is finished, it goes un-reviewed for years at a time, so it'd be nice to know people still enjoyed it <3 Thanks as always to my beta reader teacupsandcyanide. They're working on a Lush store Brotzly AU at the moment that is gonna drop soon so keep an eye out for that because trust me it's fucking incredible and I literally can't wait til they start publishing it!

**Author's Note:**

> [Dirk voice] I think I know more about American tea brands than you do, genius.
> 
> Please comment if you enjoyed, I absolutely thrive on feedback!
> 
>  
> 
> [My Tumblr.](https://gallantrejoinder.tumblr.com/)


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